Permission for Pleasure
A podcast to educate and equip women with the information and confidence they need to express, experience and enjoy their sexuality. Cindy Scharkey RN, BSN, brings her 35+ years of experience as a healthcare professional to open the doors to healthy conversations about sex. This is a community where you can listen and learn to give yourself permission for pleasure. Visit www.cindyscharkey.com for educational blogs and newsletter.
Permission for Pleasure
The Pleasure Crisis and Why Good Sex Matters
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Our society has a love/hate relationship with pleasure. More people than ever are experiencing anhedonia, the reduced ability to experience pleasure. Dr. Nan Wise, neuroscience researcher, certified sex therapist and author of Why Good Sex Matters, joins me to discuss why pleasure is a necessity for a balanced emotional brain. She walks us through the seven core emotional systems that give us feedback about what feels good and what is good for us. Dr. Nan expounds on how our brain is the command center for sex and a generator of pleasure. Learn more about your wired-in pleasure system and why good sex matters.
Dr. Nan Wise is a certified sex therapist, relationship specialist, neuroscience researcher, and author of Why Good Sex Matters: Understanding the Neuroscience of Pleasure for a Smarter, Happier, and More Purpose-Filled Life.
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Learn more about these topics:
The Growing Mental Health Crisis of Our Girls
Dating Your Body
Learning to Listen to Your Body
Sex on the Brain
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When people came to me when they were having problems with sex, underneath it they were having some emotional issues or relational issues. When people came to me with emotional issues or relationship issues, they were having sexual or pleasure challenges.
SPEAKER_01Hello everyone and welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharkey, your host. Thank you for tuning in. We are going to be talking to Dr. Nan Wise today. She wears a lot of hats as a certified sex therapist, a neuroscience researcher, and an author. Her research is absolutely fascinating to me, and I gobbled up her book, Why Good Sex Matters. I'm delighted to geek out a little bit with her and her findings and research specifically around the pleasure crisis, the mind-body pathways, and what happens in our brains with orgasm and pleasure. Before we jump in, since we're talking about pleasure, don't forget the lube. Today's episode is sponsored by Uberlube, my favorite silicone lube, and your go-to pleasure product. Recently a woman stopped me at an event and said, I really liked those little Uber lube samples you gave me, and I liked them for travel. Do you have any more on you? Well luckily I carried them around. Yes, I actually carry them around. And I gave her a few, but I told her the good news is Uberloop has a travel size, as well as that pretty glass bottle. It's perfect for your purse, pocket, gym bag, or carry-on luggage. The Good2Go Traveler features the same Uberlube product in a discrete aluminum traveler. And they have refill cartridges. Literally, it's perfect. Try Uberlube and support the show by using my discount code in the show notes. Now let's welcome Dr. Nan Wise to the show so we can talk about why pleasure and good sex matter. Nan, welcome to Permission for Pleasure. Thank you so much for having me, Cindy, and for doing this work. I'm delighted to have you on the show and introduce you to everyone. I've told them a little bit about you in the intro, but I'd love for you to introduce yourself in your own words and your work in the world.
SPEAKER_00I think, you know, aside from the fact that I have these credentials as a sex therapist and a, you know, sex neuroscientist and a relationship specialist, my real claim to fame is that I am somebody who teaches what she needs to know. And I've grappled with this very intense nervous system my whole life. We all have in my family, like the genes for anxiety. I've spent my career learning what I've needed to know personally, how to manage my emotions, how to deal with being able to embrace pleasure as not just a luxury, but a necessity for a balanced emotional brain in a good life. So really learning how to work the brain mind has been my passion. And I was lucky enough to have the opportunity, after I was a clinician for like 25 years to go back to graduate school to learn about neuroscience and then being inspired by the work of Jack Penkset, who is the person who pioneered what's called affective neuroscience, which is the neuroscience of emotion. I had the opportunity to work with him before he died. He's the guy who studied the emotions at the bottom of the brain that we share with all mammals and many other animals. And that really helped me understand like my anxiety was just sort of one of those systems that had a very, shall we say, touchy gas pedal, like it was it went on and stayed on a lot. So my work has really been about learning how to teach what I need to know, and it works pretty good most of the time.
SPEAKER_01I love it. And then you're going to talk about your book with us today, which is Why Good Sex Matters. Understanding the neuroscience of pleasure for a smarter, happier, and more purpose-filled life. I couldn't love that title any more than I do. It's quite a massive. And that is what I want to talk to you about today.
SPEAKER_00And you know, it's funny that you call this permission for pleasure, because I was on the phone with Beverly Whipple today, my very dear friend, mentor, the woman who first really I think brought the study of female sexuality into the medical community as a very serious and very important matter as a nurse. This was her calling. And we were talking about how much we all need permission for pleasure. And that really, basically, people come to sex therapy to learn to have permission to have fun in their bodies and to be sexual beings. People come to psychotherapy to learn how to be comfortable in their bodies, to learn how to how to navigate their emotions and learn how to be able to get comfortable with all sorts of feelings. So permission to feel is such an important notion in general. And permission to feel pleasure is really a big part of that.
SPEAKER_01I agree a hundred percent. And a lot of things drew me to you, but this idea that you talk about in the book that you identify as this pleasure crisis, like you're talking about why people come to therapy, why people come to sex therapy, psychotherapy, there's a crisis. I see it every day with the women I meet with. I just would love for you to talk a little bit about what you see as the crisis.
SPEAKER_00In general, we are having a worldwide mental health crisis. There are more people now who are suffering from anxiety and depressive disorders and stress-related medical conditions than ever. You know, a big piece of this is that the inability to experience pleasure, the technical term for that, anhedonia, the inability to experience pleasure, is underlying pretty much all mental health crises. So when people are anxious, a big part of that is they can't feel pleasure. When they're depressed, they can't feel pleasure, when they are suffering from other kinds of stress-related illnesses and disorders, pleasure or the inability to experience pleasure is a big issue. Plus, when you can't find pleasure through everyday living, that makes the disorders worse. And I was noticing even before the pandemic that as our rates of depression, anxiety affecting even younger and younger people, young people now have such high rates of anxiety, depression, suicidality, it breaks my heart. That a big piece of that was that we were living in ways that were not promoting brain health, that were not promoting the proper functioning of our built-in emotional systems. And so essentially, our lifestyle was creating a lot of the issues that we were seeing, the inability to experience pleasure. The sexual recession continues where less and less people are having vibrant sex lives. This is a public health crisis. I don't tell people that the only way you can have pleasure is sexuality. There's some people for whom sex is not something that they want to engage in. However, if they're unable to experience pleasures outside of the bedroom, then we got a problem. And what I've kind of noticed was after years and years of being a therapist, 40-something years now, that when people came to me when they were having problems with sex, underneath it, they were having some emotional issues or relational issues. When people came to me with emotional issues or relationship issues, they were having sexual or pleasure challenges. So I see that our relationship with sexuality is a fabulous window into how the emotional brain is functioning or not functioning so well. So anhedonia is actually a huge public health crisis right now. And what passes for pleasures, where people get hijacked into these what I call non-healthy hedonism, the practices that feel good but are not good for you, that contributes to the mental health issues, and then it makes it worse and worse and worse. So I believe that educating people to be mindful about how they consume media and social media, mindful about being using our healthy hedonism capacity, our ability to feel pleasures that feel good and are good for us. And certainly sex can be a very healthy hedonistic practice with somebody that we like or love. It's the kind of pleasure that can feel good and be good for us. There's so many health benefits of having an active sex life. Beverly Whipple did a white paper for Planned Parenthood years ago with all of the benefits of sexual behavior and sexual expression. So I think it's, you know, worthwhile for us to talk about in our country the love-hate relationship we have with pleasure and the love-hate relationship we have with sexuality.
SPEAKER_01It's interesting. I'm thinking one piece of that that I see over and over is when I do private consultations or meet with women or do workshops, often they think the issue is sex, like you're talking about. But the underlying issues are often what's going on, and then it plays out in their sex life, whether it's emotions like you talked about, or inability to experience and notice and pay attention to pleasure or what have you. There could be bigger issues too, of course. I'm not saying you know, those don't come into play as well, but so often I find this exact scenario playing out, which is why in this community and on this podcast, we're constantly challenging ourselves to think about what delights us day to day. Like pause and notice and be delighted. I know people think I'm silly sometimes. They they'll say, Well, you stopping for every flower that just fascinates you. Well, yes. Yes, I want to be delighted.
SPEAKER_00I don't think that that's silly at all. I think you're very smart. And I think what underlies a lot of the imbalances that we're seeing in people's lives, whether it's relational or emotional, is people are not really in their bodies. They don't live in their bodies, they live in their heads. And you know what? Heads are good, and it's good to have a mind. However, if you are living in your head and you're not present to your life, you're not noticing in your body what's happening. This is where the core emotions tie in. The seven core emotions are wired in instincts, literally, that are the primary colors of our emotional lives. They're designed by nature to give us feedback, to move towards things that we need and want that would give us pleasure, that would give us nutrition, that would give us nourishment, and to avoid pain, things that are bad for us. So in nature, pleasure is a signal that helps us learn, as is pain. So, for example, we want to move towards things that feel good when they're nourishing and good for us, as would be good relationships, touch with people that we love, eating good food, having sex, having fun in our bodies, and we want to avoid things that are painful in the sense that they're bad for us. And that's gotten hijacked. Because you can sit down and eat two bags of Doritos and it can be pleasurable, but it's not good for you. And if you're paying attention to the signals in your body, that's what emotions do. If you're in touch with your body, you're gonna feel after a little bit too much of the Doritos, you're gonna feel not so good in your body. So when you don't pay attention to the information that the emotions give you about what you need or what's working or not working, you're kind of out of luck with being able to direct your behavior to be effective and useful in the world. So each one of the core emotions has a signal that it gives us. Fear we feel in our bodies. It tells us, uh-oh, there's something dangerous here. Maybe we should stay away from it. Or, you know, that's an important signal that which creates fear. We don't have to learn to have fear. We babies instinctively fear pain. We're wired that way, right? If you think about the rage system, that gives us information that somebody's stepping on our toes or they're messing with our resources. That's information. If you're not paying attention to the sensations in your body that give you that information, you can't then act in the moment to be able to exert your influence to make a difference in that moment. So the emotions in our bodies give us good information. Care, the care system wired into us, powered by our own internal opioids that we make, and also things like the oxytocin, those neuropeptides, those chemicals are released in the brain. They feel good and they're good for us. And that happens through our connections. So you think about people on their devices getting all of these arbitrary bump up of the what we call dopamine, which is the hormone that gets released. It's a chemical that gets released by the seeking system. It's being hijacked so that it no longer can give us good information. And, you know, it's like the seeking system is the most important system in a way, because it's what motivates us and mobilizes us to go into the world to meet our needs, ideally, and to avoid things that are bad for us. So the dopamine system is a learning system. We think of it as the reward system. It's not really about reward, it's about reinforcement. So if you're sitting on your devices gambling or getting likes on social media, and your dopamine system is getting hijacked by that attention, the way we're using attention, the dopamine is not going to function in the way that it should function as a learning signal to motivate us to do what's really important in our lives. So, you know, we're we're screwing up our built-in systems.
SPEAKER_01There's so much there. Well, we talked about some of this with Donna, who wrote Girls on the Brink in a previous episode, and what's happening, especially with young girls and the social media and this cis dopamine system and the likes, and then just the high, high levels of anxiety. I'm thinking about that conversation and realizing, you know, again, that people, I mean, we're all attached to our phones, Nan, but I don't think people realize the impact that is having on each of us, and especially our young people who don't know anything else.
SPEAKER_00And you know what's happening, Cindy, is the way that we're using our attention. It's called continuous partial attention. We have our phones right there waiting for notifications. What we're doing by doing that is we're impairing our attentional systems to the point that people can no longer pay attention long enough to read a book to be able to critically think. I teach at Rutgers, I love my students, and a lot of them have an attention span of a fruit fly. They no longer know how to be able to focus on one thing and go deep and pay attention enough to be able to make good decisions. When you think about the brain is not fully developed, the frontal regions of the brain are not fully developed until the mid-20s. That kids that have devices where they're no longer engaging in the play system as it was designed, the play system is the source of our social joy. And for kids, it's how they learn about the world. Rough and tumble play, where they are learning competition and cooperation. They're learning how to not be assholes because they get feedback from friends in the real world. And what's happening is they're not learning how to socialize. So they're not able to date and they're not able to mate. So we are looking at down the road here. Now, like, you know, I'm the first one to say that technology is great in lots and lots of ways when you are judicious with the way that you use it. There are lots of good ways. You and I are having a face-to-face almost conversation, and we're connecting here on this platform. And it can be very satisfying, it can be very intimate, it can be very connected. So there are ways that technology can really bring us together. But this is not a fake connection, it's not getting likes from people. And I also know that that, you know, like recently I had something come out and I got a lot of new followers on Instagram, and it felt great. But I realize that when people are living for that and they're not connecting in the real world with people, they're not getting the benefit of the uh learning and the kind of regulation that we can do with one another in the real world.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Regulation.
SPEAKER_01Well, and you called out some low-tech ways in the book to dial up the dopamine dance, as you called it. And that's what you're talking about here: playful sex, you know, face to face, eyes to eyes, flesh to flesh, you know, this kind of communication is really important and getting lost in translation in so many ways today.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I also think that, like when you say being delighted, I think that being delighted means you're paying attention to your senses, you're in your experience, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00You're seeing things, you're listening to things, you're noticing your present. And at the end of the day, being present to yourself and to your environment is a necessary condition for well-being. If you don't have that, you're not embodied, you're not present, you're not able to really connect with other people. If you can't do that with yourself, yes, I agree.
SPEAKER_01And I'm going to circle back to your ideas that we talked about here related to our bodies and paying attention. And this is a theme on this podcast, let me tell you, because as a nurse, I have seen this over, you know, three decades of working with people, our inability to pay attention to what our body is saying, and the inability in any kind of instruction or education to know how to listen to what our body is saying. And that this translates into so many things, but certainly into our sexual encounters.
SPEAKER_00If you think about it, if we're really paying attention to signals from the body, we will eat to the point when we're full and then we stop eating. We're not going to eat two bags of Doritos because you're going to feel so awful afterwards. You know, we listen to the information. We know when something is off in terms of how we're feeling physically. And it's the same way with emotions. Like every emotion, every emotion, whether we're talking about fear, rage, care, play, seeking, which is gets us into the world in lust. So those are all of the systems, has information for us. Sometimes it's present time. I talk to my clients about when you notice some a sensation in your body. A lot of times I'll say to people, what's going on in your body? And they go, What? They look at me like I'm crazy. So I'll say, What are you feeling in your body as we're talking about this? And they're looking at me and they go, Well, I feel sad. Well, how do you know that? And then they have to like kind of go, Well, there's some heaviness in my chest, there's some tension in my shoulders. Like you get to get people noticing their bodies, and then they have the opportunity. And I, this is a really important point that I didn't write about in my book, but I want to really develop further, is the difference between inflammation and inflammation when it comes to emotions. Tell me more about that. So what he said was in some way critical. So I got angry. Okay, I'm giving you an example. That's in the moment. That information could say, you know what? I really wish that you wouldn't be critical. You can communicate about what's happening right now. Inflammation is when something in the present time takes you to some older experience or experiences that live on in your body, so that in a sense you overreact. And then it's like you feel hysterical, it's historical. So what we want to make the distinction when you're having an emotion is it really about something present time? Which then is great information because that means if I'm feeling fear, maybe I need to change where I am, you know, present time. If I'm angry, maybe I need to give people feedback about what they've said or done that's pissed me off. If I'm feeling warm and fuzzy about somebody in the moment, I'm really enjoying them and the experience. Like, you know, you can feel warm and positive about somebody in the moment because you're having an interchange. But the historical stuff, which is what I say it's inflammation, is when people start exploding over things that their upset does not seem well, I don't like to use the word appropriate because that's judgy, but it seems like it's really it's almost like it doesn't match. Yes, it doesn't match. When you lose your temper over something that doesn't seem warranted, it's because it's historical, it's some inflammation, which is good news because when then you recognize you're triggered, it's like a trigger, you have the opportunity then to acknowledge that you have a trigger to be able to understand what's the history to this. We know what's on our mind, but we don't know sometimes how much we get impacted by things that have happened in the past, by history, that then gets ignited, and that's where the inflammation is. And then we have the opportunity to be able to deal with whatever might be the trauma, whether it's a small trauma, big trauma, you know, trauma is something that lives on in us, experience that lives on in us that's associated with something very negative. And then we have the opportunity to realize in present time, like when I work with people who have trauma histories, we're able to go, okay, so let's listen in your body to the old experiences. And we don't even have to describe the experiences because they live on in the body and trigger, you know, like a strong feeling. And let's think about like, well, is anything happening now that's triggering that? And they can kind of like think about it and go, well, I think I'm experiencing something when I didn't have the power that I have now or the choices that I have now. And then you can take those old experiences, often in the form of people's memories, and then reconsolidate them to give them a new meaning. Well, that's how I felt then when I didn't have the power. But guess what? I've got power now. I have strength, I have choice, I have agency over my body, I can choose to consent to sex. It lets people release old stuff. So when it comes up, it's not bad. It gets us to be able to put it back with a different frame to it.
SPEAKER_01I think that's really important language, Nan. I haven't heard that inflammation term exactly like that. When I read Body Keeps the Score, I learned so much about different therapies available to people. Some I had not, I had never heard of even through nursing school or working with people. As you're talking, I'm thinking about I mean, uh just a practical example, and it's not always related to sex, you know. Like I have someone dear to me who's ill and suffering now, and I became very, very sad last week. Like really sad. I said, What am I feeling? My body is really responding here. I mean, what is going on? And I it had just really brought up everything about my own dad's illness and death and caring for him until his death. And I said to myself, Cindy, you're just you're feeling those feelings again. And it was traumatic and it was difficult. And you know a lot more now. You've learned so much since then. And you can come alongside, you know, this person in a way in which you can use the things you've learned and also and still grieve. My dad, I mean, this was years and years ago, Nan. But I it just happened last week where I thought, what is my my body is really telling me something? What? What are you trying, what is she trying to tell me? And you have to sit with yourself and investigate those things like you're talking about. I wasn't trained to do that, you know, growing up. Like, sit with yourself, Cindy, and figure out what are you feeling, what's your body telling you, you know. But when we encourage people to do that, if they're listening and they think, wow, that is new information to me. I I don't want to sit there and figure out. But when we do, like you're saying, the result can be a new way of thinking of the the sad or hurtful or angry experience in the past. And then, like, what do you what do you want to call it? Making it a re memory, but in a more tolerable new way.
SPEAKER_00And I think it really hinges so much, Cindy, on our willingness to feel. Sometimes all we need to do is hang out in the difficult feelings. I just wrote a blog for psychology today, a couple weeks back, that did very well because I think it resonated. The willingness to feel the difficult feelings because it connects all of us. There's nobody here that gets out without experiencing grief. And I remember I forgot to share a very important system. I forgot to talk about the panic grief system. So I didn't get all seven. The panic grief system, it's wired into us, it's the substrate for our heartbreak and our grief. And it's so important to us. It's the what you can think of as sort of the dark side of the care system. So, you know, care is where we get all that warm and fuzzy, you know, natural opioids and painkillers. And anything that presents a threat to those relationships or resources will activate panic grief. That's a system, panic, grief, sadness. It's got like three names, it's that important. And that ability for us to realize that connects all of us. There's nobody who's lived through life who hasn't experienced the pain of loss. We all share that being human things. Even dogs have panic grief systems, even chickens have panic grief systems when they're separated from the baby. Chicks are separated from their parents, they cry. Because the separated baby is a potential meal for a predator. So, you know, being able to feel the feelings. This was my training in Gastal therapy years ago. It was one of the first, if not the first, therapy that focused on having sensations in the body and being able to be present to them. It's so helpful to be able to recognize if we give ourselves permission to be able to have whatever we're having in the way of feeling, and also to be able to recognize that we really don't have to. We really can't do that by ourselves. It's like when we're really sad, maybe we need some time alone, but being with somebody who we love or even a comfort pet can be so soothing because it stimulates our care systems, that our willingness to feel the feelings. Even if we don't know what they're about, we can be sad enough to get over it. And that lets us be present and also lets us be present to have. If you truncate or you put a damper on the sadness, you're also going to put a damper on your joy. Yes. So hello. And you know, antidepressants, believe me, I'm not against antidepressants. There, I've been a therapist long enough to know that there are a lot of people who would not have a good quality life without medication. And at the same time, you notice I didn't say but. As a gestalt person, you could train not to say but because it takes something away, like I love you, but your feet stink. It's like we're so quick to medicate any kind of emotion that we want to put people on painkillers. That's why we have painkillers crazy. Oh, people are in pain and it's emotional pain. That's where a lot of the painkillers are being abused. And antidepressants, you need to find a good, a good titration, a good balancing between where people are, if they're going to be in too much pain to be able to enjoy their lives, and or you don't want them too blunted either. I respect good clinicians who can, you know, work with people to calibrate it and to titrate it. And I would also suggest that maybe we don't need to be so quick to medicate emotional pain. That it's when it's appropriate, life it comes with catastrophe and loss and grief.
SPEAKER_01Well, I love that also just the all the ideas around pleasure that we've talked about and the systems in our brain. And you know, what's interesting is all of these things come into play for our whole healthy self. You know, for our whole self to be integrated with our mind, our body. And like you said, I do feel like so many of us are just mind-focused rather than integrating our whole mind and body. I think what we're gonna do, Nan, is we're gonna pause here and then we're gonna pivot and go to part two about how our brain is wired for pleasure, how orgasm is a big brain event, and what you found in your research with women especially, and what their brain was doing, I say, on orgasm, on pleasure. So listeners, we're gonna pause here and wrap up part one and meet you in part two. Thanks so much for listening today. I do hope you'll join Ann and I for part two of this discussion. She is a wealth of information and experience, and it's a treat to share this conversation with her and with you. Do check the show notes for your discount code to Uberloop, our episode sponsor, and don't forget to take a moment to rate and review the show. Until part two, keep giving yourself permission for pleasure.
