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
How Curiosity Fuels Desire
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Research shows that greater curiosity outside the bedroom leads to higher sexual satisfaction. Sex therapist and author Dr. Emily Jamea joins me to talk about her book Anatomy of Desire: Five Secrets to Create Connection and Cultivate Passion. Learn how novelty works as a key component for fueling your desire.
More on these topics
Practicing Flow State Sex with Emily Jamea
Understanding Your Desire Style
Partner desire discrepancies
Want better sex? Ask yourself these questions
Fantasy and play in the bedroom with Dr. Carolin Klein
ORDER my Book: Permission for Pleasure: Tending Your Sexual Garden
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Because this is not a matter of becoming someone you're not or really looking too far outside oneself. It's about reconnecting with these qualities which are there within us, but we've maybe lost connection to.
SPEAKER_02Welcome to Permission for Pleasure. I'm Cindy Sharkey, your host. Today we're talking about desire. Five secrets to create connection and cultivate passion with Dr. Emily Jamia, her new book, Anatomy of Desire. She describes in the book as a therapist that what people want is, and I'll quote here, they want sex that felt free and fun, passionate, they yearned for sex that made them feel totally absorbed, that made them briefly forget who they were while at the same time helping them discover new sides of themselves. Oh, you're in for a good discussion today. Thanks for being with me. And let me introduce you to Dr. Emily Jamia. Emily, welcome to the show. Thank you, Cindy. I'm so happy to be here with you today. Glad to have you on. You were in season one with me in episode 15, talking about practicing flow state sex. Yeah, I know. How many years ago when that was? Quite a few, several, and that was an excellent conversation. So, listeners, if you are new to the podcast, I really encourage you to go back and listen to that. That is in the top 20 downloads of all my seasons.
SPEAKER_03That is awesome.
SPEAKER_02People are very interested in this topic, and you are the perfect person to talk to about it. So you have a new book coming out, uh, Anatomy of Desire: Five Secrets to Create Connection and Cultivate Passion. So before we talk about your book, why don't you tell people a little bit about you and your work in the world?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Thank you. So I am based in Houston, Texas. I am a sex and relationship therapist and have been for over 15 years. I know for a lot of people this is kind of a second career for them. For me, the second I took a human sexuality elective in my undergraduate program, I was hooked. I think that sex is such an interesting window into someone's psyche. And I was studying psychology and just, you know, it clicked to me that you can learn a lot about someone by understanding how they operate sexually. So from that point forward, I just focused all of my studies in that area and eventually opened my private practice. And the rest is history, you know. I think I kind of got to a point where, you know, I felt like I had some good information to share and wanted to try to reach a wider audience, which is um, you know, in part the impetus for the book.
SPEAKER_02Love that. So you have written this book, and the five secrets are the chapters in the book. So tell me those just the five secrets.
SPEAKER_01Sure. So the secrets are sensuality, curiosity, adaptability, vulnerability, and attunement. Okay.
SPEAKER_02Okay. I know we can't cover your whole book in a short short episode. So there's a lot in there. There is a lot in there. There is. And and you talk a lot about this flow state sex. And so your research around that has informed this book, yes?
SPEAKER_01For sure, for sure. You know, I had gotten to a point in my career where I could help people overcome things like ED or help women have more consistent orgasms, help them overcome pain with sex, that sort of thing. And I could help couples who had issues around desire, but, you know, I noticed that oftentimes people would come back wanting more, you know, just a little more passion, a little more intensity. And they would say things like they want sex, like it was in the honeymoon stage, and I would remind them that that's kind of a temporary neurochemical high, or they'd say sex like they want sex, like they see in the movies. And I'd remind them that those are paid actors. And, you know, but I started paying closer attention to the words they were using to describe the sex they wanted. And they were using words like, I want the world around me to disappear, I just want it to feel effortless, I want to be lost in the moment, I want that sense of unity and merger. And I'm like, that's flow state language, you know. So for people listening who don't know what a flow state is, this is a term that was coined decades ago by a Hungarian American psychologist named Mihai Chiksent Mihai. And he noticed that when people were engaged in activity in which they experienced this complete absorption, total focus, they did experience things like loss of space and time. And he felt like people who could find something that put them into this state were experiencing the most pleasure, the most joy, the they had a lot of meaning in their life. And most people can think of something that puts them into a flow state. Usually, you know, we think of something in the arts or something athletic, creative. But I turned to the academic literature to see what I could find on the relationship between flow state and sexual satisfaction, and there was nothing out there. And I was just shocked because I'm like, this is something most people are doing. They're hoping to find pleasure and enjoyment from it, obviously. Like, surely someone's gotta kind of understand if the flow state is potentially what's happening when sex goes really well, but there was nothing. So that's why I initiated my own research study and looked specifically at the relationship between flow state and sexual satisfaction. And keep in mind, people could only participate in my study. There were a few exclusion criteria, but one of the more important ones is they couldn't be in a relationship for under a year because I specifically wanted to rule out that honeymoon stage sex, which, you know, I think anyone with a beating heart can enjoy. And I wanted to know specifically if this feeling was something that was, you know, sustainable for the long haul. And I had a really great sample size in terms of relationship length, you know, people who'd been in relationships for five years, up to like 45 years, I think, you know, men, women, everything in between. And found that yes, people who were getting into a flow state were having the best sex. And not only that, the statistical analysis showed that flow state predicted great sex. And what that meant is simply by teaching people about flow state and applying those principles to sex, we kind of created a new model or approach to treating issues around desire. It's been really exciting research.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. One of the things I remember you saying that always stuck with me from our conversation way back was that we have these skills within us. We have these secrets sort of within us. And you reiterated that in your book. And I think that's an encouragement to people. Totally. You know, to know that you have it within you to pursue this kind of connection and sex.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. You know, what I did after the I got the quantitative results was I called up the people who had the highest scores and had really long conversations with them about what kinds of things they were doing to get into this state so that I could, you know, come up with the formula. And it was these five secrets, these themes, which emerged. And as I stepped back and took a look at them, I'm like, we are all born sensual, curious, you know, with the ability to adapt to new environments. We are all vulnerable and we can all attune to each other. And I thought that was so exciting because this is not a matter of becoming someone you're not or really looking too far outside oneself. It's about reconnecting with these qualities which are there within us, but we've maybe lost connection to. I love that.
SPEAKER_02I just love that. I want to actually focus our time on one of these areas because, you know, I get turned on talking about this excitement of curiosity. Yes. You define curiosity in the book as recognizing, embracing, and seeking out knowledge and new experiences. I would really like to hear more about the challenge skills ratio you talk about and this excitement of curiosity. Sure. Tell me all the things.
SPEAKER_01Let's get into it. Yeah. So I think curious people, people who maintain a sense of curiosity, relate to their partner with a sense of wonderment and awe. They continue asking questions. You know, relationships and we as individuals are living, breathing organisms. We evolve, we change. And people who are curious understand and acknowledge that. And they're always trying to understand different elements of their partner. You know, they ask the open-ended questions, like rather than saying, Did you have a good day at work today? They're they're more likely to say things like, What was the most challenging thing you experienced at the office today? You know, they're having kind of these more meaningful conversations with their partner. And then I think for themselves, you know, a lot of my research participants, and this has been reflected in similar research, were very curious about some of the values and ideas and beliefs that they have internalized about sex and relationships that were maybe put on them from the culture, environment, family, you know, religion that they were brought up in. You know, I think a lot of us don't realize how much of these values we internalize without really stopping to assess whether they truly fit for us or not. But people who are curious did tend to take a step back. Or people in my research, you know, maybe had gone through therapy at one point. And there was kind of a an opportunity to really examine what was true in terms of their authentic sexual self. And for some people, that meant a rejection of some, you know, kind of relationship and sexual norms and really understanding and identifying what actually fits for them as individuals, and then, you know, partnering up with people who can complement that. So that's part of it. You know, people who are curious in their relationships, you know, we know from research on this is more, you know, kind of contemporary research on self-expansion, like couples who try new things, you know, are way more likely to be interested in sex, report greater sexual satisfaction, greater desire, enhanced relationship satisfaction. So I think what ends up happening for a lot of people is we don't realize kind of how monotonous our lives become. And, you know, like Esther Perel talks a lot about how important it is to maintain a sense of aliveness. And that showed up with the people I talked to. Like we have to kind of be curious about ourselves, about the world around us, about our partner, and about our sexuality if we want to maintain that sense of erotic vitality.
SPEAKER_02Yes. You know, in your book, you quoted the study by psychologist Amy, is it me? Wise, I think. Yep. Wise, thank you. And she indicated that this made me stop, literally, Emily. People who tried something new, like shucking an oyster for the first time, which okay, I've never done that, or trying ballroom dance lessons were 36 times more likely to have sex with their partner that day. Not twice as likely. You said a whopping 36 times more likely. Like it was pretty much guaranteed. That is fascinating. You know, you know what it made me think of is I don't know. I'm dating myself, but one of my husband's favorite movies was Shall We Dance. Okay. It's an older movie. Have you ever seen it? So okay, you should see it. It is uh Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon and Jennifer Lopez, and it's a man who tries ballroom dance lessons. It's kind of the story of him in a long-term relationship and getting curious about just something new and then what that sparks in him. It made me think of that. I've watched it so many times. And I think there's something to that. Oh, and obviously the research is saying there is.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. You know, when we learn new things, we tap into different parts of ourselves. We know and understand a part of ourselves in a new way, and thereby kind of relate to our partner in a new way. They see this emerging new side of us that they're like, hey, that's kind of interesting. And and so it's sometimes about, you know, that sense of novelty outside the bedroom can create a newness inside the bedroom. It's an energy, I think, that transfers in. And I think there's just too much of an emphasis on, you know, crazy, you know, tips and tricks and whips and changes.
SPEAKER_02Well, you got to hang from the chandeliers for it to, you know. And what the research is saying and what you're saying is that it's not about hanging from the chandeliers or even a new position or a toy or whatever, but it is about, and this is within all of us. Getting curious outside the bedroom will lead to curiosity inside the bedroom. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01It really does. And you know, it's funny you bring up dancing. I personally feel like dancing specifically has a really strong correlation to improved sex. And this is more just kind of anecdotal. But I was at a conference a few weeks ago, and one of the presenters was talking about how men in particular are kind of uncomfortable about pelvic movement and how he recommends dance and yoga and things like that to a lot of his male clients just so that they can get more comfortable with, you know, pelvic thrusts and he starts gyrating on stage. You know, I mean, it's true. I think that, especially here in the US, you know, a lot of American men might just not be very comfortable with their pelvis. And so I think dance in particular would probably have a pretty strong direct effect.
SPEAKER_02Listeners, there's your little tip, one tip for today just to try a little movement in your own home. I think there's a lot to though. Yeah, for sure. I do. For sure. And in the book, you said creativity lives in the space between that which is familiar and that which is new. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yes. So I think this is where a lot of people go wrong. And we'll talk about challenge skills ratio, is when they're trying to shake things up, they kind of go too hard too fast, or they jump into the deep end, or they start reading about things and they're like, God, like that's just not me. That's way too far outside my comfort zone. So, in order to balance that, you've got to keep a foothold in something that is familiar. And, you know, a lot of my research participants would talk about how it wasn't necessarily things like sex with a new partner that was really exciting. It was when something unexpected, and just a little thing unexpected happened with their current partner, who they were very comfortable and familiar with, and ideally, you know, had a secure attachment to and that sort of thing. But there was a little bit of something that kind of broke, broke the pattern, if you will. And this is what we see in research and science around flow states. So one of the strongest predictors of flow, and I should back up and say that flow, there's eight components of flow. One of them is called the challenge skills ratio, and that is one of the strongest predictors of flow. And if you imagine an XY axis and on the y-axis, you have how challenging something is, and on the x-axis, you have how skillful you are with that activity. So let's take tennis, for example. Okay. If you're playing against a partner who is a lot better than you are, in other words, the challenge of the game is way high above your skill set, you're gonna feel intimidated. You'll feel anxious, you might even feel kind of scared that she or he is gonna, you know, whack you in the head with a tennis ball. You're not gonna enjoy the game. You know, on the contrary, if you're playing against someone who is a first timer, but you have a few years of practice under your belt, you're gonna feel kind of bored. Like you're not gonna get into the zone. So when the challenge of what we're doing is too high, we feel anxious. When it's too low, we feel bored. When the challenge of what we're doing is just 4% greater than our skill set, we get into the zone.
SPEAKER_00Just 4%. 4%. Just 4%.
SPEAKER_01That's it. That is it. It does not take much. And I'm thinking back to this wasn't one of my research participants, so it didn't end up in the book. But you know, I've been applying this to my clients a lot since writing the book. I wish I could have included this because I think it's such a perfect example. But he said that, you know, typically they had sex in the missionary position. One night, rather than just kind of balancing himself on his forearms like he typically did, he reached down with one of his hands and held her hand. And then he used the other one to kind of cup the back of her head and you know, sort of kind of laid his body on hers. And just that difference, you know, made the whole experience feel a gazillion times more erotic for both of them.
SPEAKER_00It was such a subtle shift, but it it packed a major punch.
SPEAKER_02That's a great example. I was as you were talking, I thought, okay, are they gonna bring like a wedge in or a pillow under her hips? Because so often, you know, I think just like we've been saying, people think it has to be so major. And it really, you're saying four percent. So as you're listening, you know, friends, like what is a small thing like holding your partner's hand, like like she just described, or cupping the back of their neck, or putting your foreheads together, or let's brainstorm here. Even people don't gaze into each other's eyes and gaze, I mean, which is so erotic, right?
SPEAKER_01Yes, I actually write a lot about that in the vulnerability chapter because I have had so many people come through my office and they're like, we'll do anything to spice things up. I'm like, ooh, okay. Have you ever tried looking at each other, like keeping your eyes open during sex? And they're like, oh my God, like why would I do that? You know, but it's because we become so used to tuning each other out and just kind of going through the motions that we forget how to connect at a deeper, more emotional level. And I think that adds a really important element to the erotic experience. So for sure, little things like that can open up a whole new dimension for people.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I liked the way you said in the book, just circle back to something you said earlier about I don't know if you said not going too far out of your comfort zone or I can't remember your exact words, but in the book, this ratio with the challenge and the skills balance, you said there's the sweet spot. And it's the idea of stretching but not snapping. Right. Right. It precisely talk about that a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, again, I just think that when people start thinking about how to spice up their sex life, and if you do a Google search for like how to spice up my sex life, you know, a lot of people are gonna come across things that they just don't feel comfortable with. And what ends up happening when we push ourselves too far is we we like snap back even further and can make for kind of a negative experience and kind of further increase our feelings of sexual inhibition, which is why it's so important, you know, to have a preliminary conversation with your partner about the baby steps you can take. I mean, I've worked with couples who want to think about like opening up their relationship, or maybe they want to have a threesome. And I'm like, let's just start with, you know, the two of you go into a bar and, you know, letting one person flirt with someone else and then like sleep on how that felt for like a week and just see, you know, if you really want to continue to take it further than that. Like, you know, but I think a lot of people don't stop and create baby steps. And so what ends up happening is maybe they set up a threesome and it goes terribly wrong, and someone ends up in tears, and it's damaging to the relationship. So it's always thinking about the 4%, the very little baby steps you can take as you continue to sexually explore and stay curious, but it doesn't take much, it's just little stretches that you know little stretches without snapping.
SPEAKER_02Let's not snap. Yes. Now you talk about fantasies and our sexual fantasies in the book. And this is gosh, this is such one of those topics I find where people freak out, right? I'd appreciate your perspective on this. In relation to this curiosity and creativity space for some framework for people around fantasy.
SPEAKER_01Sure, sure. So, I mean, God bless Justin Lay Miller, who really, you know, gave us such a groundbreaking, I think, really thorough understanding of sexual fantasy. I mean, he looked at, I think, over 4,000 people across pretty much every demographic and found that, you know, most of us are having dirty thoughts. And rarely is it like fantasy about a bed of roses. Like our minds are in the gutter about things, but it's still, I think, for a lot of people, things they feel embarrassed about or insecure about, or people are kind of likely to think there's something wrong with them because of the fantasies we have. But I come from the mind that, like, if sex is always just about the body, you know, and that's great. And that's, you know, that's what the sensuality chapter is all about is about really, you know, learning to reinhabit the body, which is also, I think, problematic for people. But this is also the curiosity chapter, is more about opening the mind. And that includes tapping into kind of our erotic headspace. And I think the great thing about fantasies is they are always accessible, they don't hurt anybody, they're totally free. And we have got to give ourselves permission to kind of use our imaginative minds. I mean, animals can't conjure images the way that humans can. So it can be very exciting. We can tap into, like I said, different parts of our psyche when we kind of give ourselves permission to explore our fantasy world.
SPEAKER_02I think what I'm remembering, Dr. Carolyn Klein was on, and she said, think of it as like what makes your heart race. Instead of thinking, if that's an easier way to frame out, like what kind of things do you imagine that make your heart race? And then that's a way to also discuss it with a partner. And I really liked that framework of not saying people are so intimidated to share or talk about, you know, their thoughts with a partner. So instead of saying, what's your fantasies about, you know, perhaps saying as she indicated, what makes your heart race when you think about it? And it could be so often fantasies are things that we think about, but maybe don't necessarily want to do in real life.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I mean, first of all, you have a right to keep your fantasies to yourself. I think there is 100%, you know, I think there's a place for sexual privacy and autonomy. And if you have a fantasy and it feels sacred to you and you don't want to share it with anyone, hey, more power to you. You know, if you do want to share it with your partner and you are worried about what they might think, you know, what I always say is start the conversation with look, I would love to talk about, you know, our fantasies. And I feel a little uncomfortable, you know, sharing them with you because I haven't shared them with anyone before. So I just want to ask that, you know, you're open and see if you can stay non-judgmental as we have the conversation. Like put that out there first. And, you know, rarely is someone gonna say, like, no, I don't want to hear it, or no, I'm gonna judge you for having that thought. So I think just kind of expressing and putting it out there that, hey, I feel a little awkward or uncomfortable. But, you know, I think talking about this and exchanging fantasies could not only be exciting, but kind of enhance intimacy, make us feel close to one another because we're sharing a very personal thing. And yes, you know, whether it's just kind of the excitement of saying it out loud and that's it, or if it's a, you know, precursor to actually exploring it in real life, you know, that's something you can kind of talk through with your partner. And again, you you sleep on it, right? Like you put it out there, you have a conversation, and then you can see how you feel after, you know, a few weeks, if and then kind of reassess whether it's something you actually want to explore or not.
SPEAKER_02I appreciate that idea of sometimes we're thinking of something ourselves, you know, over a course of time, and then we bring it up to our partner, and then we don't allow them time to marinate with it or think about it or decide yes, no, maybe, or absolutely not, or I'm open. You know, I think there's there's value in reminding ourselves that, you know, when we bring something new to the table or an idea to the table with a partner, we also have to allow time for them to process.
SPEAKER_01Oh, totally. I mean, I was literally having this conversation with a client yesterday where he shared something and she kind of you know, I could tell got and he could tell, got a little kind of shut down and was contemplative about it. And he's like, Well, I don't want to leave here if she's still freaked out. And I said, you know what? Like, let her be a little contemplative. Let's not say freaked out, but like let her just be a little bit contemplative about what you just shared. Like, let's be okay with her kind of sitting in that for a few days and then, you know, pick back up on this next week. And and so, yes, to your point, I think we've got to give our partners some time to kind of process and and examine any automatic reactions they may have. You know, I think I I talk about this a lot in the attunement chapter. You know, it's so common for us, or maybe it's it is in the curiosity chapter, I can't remember. You know, it's so common for us to have very strong automatic reactions about something. And I'm always like, let's take a beat. You know, first identify what the feeling is that just came up for you. How strong is that feeling? What automatic thought do you have that's attached to what your partner just shared or to the feeling that you just have? And then step further back and say, you know, what evidence do I have to support this automatic thought versus what evidence do I have that refutes this belief? You know, and then can I come up with a more alternative or balanced thought? And if so, how do my feelings change? But because people aren't curious, they don't go through that line of reasoning. You know, they have the automatic reaction and that's the end. And so I think we have to be very mindful and know when to take a step back and examine, you know, our feelings about sex and relationships. Cause if not, like we're gonna feel stuck and eventually get bored. You know, we know from other research, lots of research, that novelty is a real key component of long-term sexual satisfaction. So, you know, it's important to find ways to be comfortable with it and remembering that you can do so without stepping too far outside the box.
SPEAKER_02There's that stretch but not snap. Yep. Exactly. Well, that's a beautiful demonstration of kind of the progress of having that kind of conversation and thinking. And I think you're right. I mean, so many people we haven't learned to sit with ourselves even for a minute and think through like, why do I think that? Why do I have feelings about that? Wait, where am I feeling that and why? And it takes those extra steps, but that is the beauty of curiosity, is it not? I mean, yeah, and attunement to ourselves, right?
SPEAKER_01Right, precisely, precisely. I think it's again, you know, it's I talk about this early in the curiosity chapter. You know, four-year-olds on average, and I have a four-year-old right now, and I can attest to this, they ask on average like 400 questions a day. 400? Wow. Middle schoolers ask an average of two questions per day. So we, I think for a lot of different reasons, stop being curious, stop asking questions, shut down our mind, you know, kind of let inhibition take over, accept things that are taught to us that face value. And I think to really have a vibrant, rich sex life, we have to spend some time, you know, pushing back or at least challenging some of that stuff, being curious about what we've internalized.
SPEAKER_02And it starts with ourselves.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, yeah. And that's something, you know, throughout each of these chapters, I talk about first, you know, how to connect with each secret within yourself, and then in your relationship, and then in your sex life.
SPEAKER_02And that's the progression. So let's say that again. It starts with ourselves, right? Yeah. And then, you know, we can't people think we're gonna jump it all into the bedroom, and it just doesn't work well like that. Whether you're practicing the curiosity or you know, vulnerability or mindfulness, or you know, we have to practice outside of sex in order to bring it there, bring it into the bedroom to set ourselves up for success. I mean, for it to work, right?
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Exactly. Well, because what I always tell people, and I think I say this like three times in the book, you know, you cannot separate your sexuality from your individuality. You know, anything that makes you who you are is going to show up in the erotic space. And so really connecting with each of these qualities within yourself, I think, is an important step in showing up completely whole and integrated into, you know, that kind of connection with another person.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm. Beautiful. As you think about your book, especially this chapter on curiosity where we're focusing, what's maybe one other way you might encourage someone listening to start, to start getting curious?
SPEAKER_01I have a sexual values exercise in the book, and I think that's a really good place to start. So it goes through and it asks people things like, you know, what is the relationship between sex and love for you? How do you know if you're sexually satisfied? How do you expect to be treated before, during, and after sex? You know, what conversations have you had with people who maybe hold different values about sex and relationships from you? Not necessarily to be swayed that way, but just to better understand why you hold the values that you do. And so there's several questions there that people can go through that I think are really helpful. And I think that's a good place to start. Because it again, I think when it comes to sex specifically, we just internalize so much from you know, family, culture, religion, society, gender, and and just don't spend enough time being curious about our own personal sexual values.
SPEAKER_02Yes. I mean, to be honest, that is the core of my book that's coming soon. It's unlearning these things that we have ingested, absorbed, swallowed, taken in, and have learned to just color inside the lines of without pausing and walking through some of these things and deciding, like you said at the top of the show, if it still serves us and is you know resonates for us, or if we we want to uproot it and let it go because we've grown and evolved and changed, but that does take that pause, it does take that time of investigation. So I appreciate these questions that you have in your book and helping people get to the roots of what they think and believe so that they can step forward into something new if that's what they choose and want to do. Precisely. I love that. And I love that you're writing a whole book about this. It's so exciting. I do think, you know, like we've said, it's hard to do to sit with ourselves and examine ourselves. And yet that's a theme throughout your book of these areas of sensuality, curiosity, adaptability, vulnerability, and attunement. And wow, the shift and change for ourselves. Yeah. And then possibly if we're partnered with a partner, it gets well, it's just yummy.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you. Yeah, and you know, people ask, like, do I have to be in a relationship to read this book? And I say, absolutely no. I mean, like I said, each of these has a big section on um how these qualities manifest within the individual. And I think reading this just in in anticipation of your next relationship would be really great for people, you know, and and to go through those secrets again. I the reason I titled it, Anatomy of Desire, like these I think are the components of desire. You know, sensuality is the body, curiosity is the mind, adaptability is kind of the spirit, not in like a religious sense. You know, vulnerability is the heart, and attunement is where it all comes together in relation with another.
SPEAKER_02So well, that gives me a warm feeling when you describe it that way.
SPEAKER_01That's yeah, it's it's a more, I think, holistic yet tangible and applicable approach to desire.
SPEAKER_02Well, and the parts of flow, because I've heard you talk about that. So it keeps coming up in my mind like, wow, that feeling of flow. So that's that's really something to get excited about.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. Flow is so juicy. And I think you know, once you start applying this stuff and everything clicks and you have that sexual experience, we were like, oh my God, like I think I was in a flow state. Like it's just so incredible. So I really and I really believe everybody can get there, you know.
SPEAKER_02Oh, and I won it for everybody. I do. I know, I know. It's awesome. Oh, thank you so much for being with us for your book. Tell people how they can find you and your work in the world.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, Cindy. It's my pleasure. So the book is available everywhere. Books are sold. And right now, through the week of my pub date, that it comes out officially on November 5th. You can get the book and go to my website, emilyjamia.com, and follow the instructions there to get like tons of free bonuses. I mean, free access to my online workshop and intimacy discussion deck, 30-day intimacy challenge. Like, there's tons of stuff there. So be sure to check that out. I'm on all the social media channels at DR Emily Jamea. And um, I have a podcast as well called Love and Libido. So check it out.
SPEAKER_02Right. Love and libido. On this show, we still share delights, something that delights us every day or brings you pleasure. I wonder what's delighting you these days.
SPEAKER_01You know, I have to say, right now it's my kids. They are just, they're both so cute right now. They're four and six, and they're playing together a lot. And when I sit back and watch them play, I just feel such delight. So that's kind of been like top of mind right now, I'd say. Beautiful.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for sharing that.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And that idea community of play, of being delighted. Like she's talking about watching her kids play. You know, that's a piece we didn't get to talk about, but it it is part of this. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Allowing ourselves to play. Yeah, I have a whole section on play in the book. It is so important.
SPEAKER_02Yes, that's beautiful. Well, thanks again. And until next time, community, keep giving yourself permission for pleasure. I have some amazing news, friends. My book, Permission for Pleasure Tending Your Sexual Garden, is coming out earlier than expected. Our new release date is January, but the elves are saying it may arrive earlier. And right now, the publisher has an offer through January 3rd, 2025, for free economy shipping on all orders, over $50 to the continental US and Canada. I do see all of you around the globe listening, and soon, so soon, my book will be available to you as well. So please stay tuned. But for those of you in US and Canada, today is a perfect opportunity to pre-order your book and one for a friend to give the gift of permission.
