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The Post-Divorce Glow-Up Show
Ever wish you could hang out with a smart, funny, sexy divorced bff who could tell you how she does it all? Now you can! Join certified life coach Quinn Otrera each week as she spills the tea on everything from co-parenting with an angry ex to getting your sexy back to creating an intentional path for growth to getting a restraining order â not necessarily in that order. Buckle up, girlfriend! Itâs time for your post-divorce glow-up!
The Post-Divorce Glow-Up Show
50: The Sex Talk You Were Never Supposed to Hear (Convo w/ Britta Jo of The Stay or Go Podcast)
đ„ Episode Description: Welcome to the post-divorce pleasure revolution.
In this unfiltered, wide-ranging, absolutely juicy episode, Quinn and Britta Jo reunite for one of their signature off-the-cuff intimacy chats. This time? Weâre talking orgasms, pleasure, post-divorce sex, religious shame, dating disasters, and reclaiming our deliciously complex female bodies.
We cover everything from âtuna canâ lovers to the orgasm gap, from purity culture to sex in midlife, and we do it with our signature combo of sass, smarts, and soul.
If youâve ever felt broken, frustrated, ashamed, or just straight-up bored in the bedroomâthis oneâs for you. Whether youâre single, dating, partnered, or figuring it all out, we promise this episode will make you laugh, cry, cringe, nod furiously, and maybeâjust maybeâlight a fire inside you that says, I deserve more.
Topics We Hit:
- The Orgasm Gap and why itâs still a thing in 2025 đ€
- What happens when you grow up thinking female pleasure is a sin đŹ
- How religious programming messes with our bodies and brains
- Sexless marriages, silent suffering, and the power of finally saying âenoughâ
- First orgasms, worst partners, and what happens when you fake it for a decade
- The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (and why Jane Ward is our new bestie)
- Why your body isnât brokenâyou just might need a different lover (or toy đ)
- Dying for Sex: the Hulu show that will change the way you think about your life
- How to rewire your relationship with your body through pleasure
- And why centering your orgasm might just be the most radical thing you ever do
đ„ Listener Love Note: If youâre a woman wondering if itâs too late for epic sex, deep pleasure, or wild joyâthis episode is your proof: Itâs not too late. Itâs just the beginning.
âš Featured Resources:
- Dying for Sex (FX/Hulu series)
- The Tragedy of Heterosexuality by Jane Ward
- Vitamin O by Barbara Keesling
- The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton & Janet Hardy
- Quinnâs episode: Get Yourself Off, Get Your Life Back
đ Want to Join the Community? Britta Joâs Stay or Go Community is a sacred space for women navigating divorce, desire, and rediscovering themselves. Itâs part group coaching, part sisterhood, part safe haven for these juicy, real conversations.
To apply, text âstay or go communityâ to 33377 for an interview with Alex (who, side note, is Quinnâs badass oldest daughter đââïž).
𧥠Coaching with Quinn: Quinn is still taking 1:1 coaching clients for a limited time before diving deeper into nursing school. If youâre post-divorce and ready to glow all the way up, nowâs the time.
PostDivorceGlowUp.com
Email: quinn@postdivorceglowup.com
Well, hello, such a treat today because for those of you that are listening to this over on Quinn's podcast, we are teaming up today. So, hello. It's so nice to see all of you over here in Quinn's world, and for those on my podcast, welcome Quinn. Hi, babe. Thank
Speaker 3:you. It's about time. It's been several months since we've had one of these really juicy conversations, so I'm excited to be here. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. I know we have just been in the thick of both of kind of our own tracks, producing our own things. Mm-hmm. And lately, so Quinn and I stay in touch. Very frequently via the Voxer app, which my clients and your clients know about. Mm-hmm. Yes. Um, that's where we message with our clients. And so we also message each other, and we were noticing recently you were just bringing up a bunch of stuff about sex and orgasms, and I was like, this is juicy, yummy. I love this. And you had actually just done a podcast episode right? Like a week ago.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my last episode that dropped was about the importance of female orgasm, especially as you're going through really stressful situations. And it reminded me of my journey to enjoy my own pleasure and my own orgasms. And it was not an easy road. And if you Britta, do you know what the, something called the orgasm
Speaker 2:gap? Do you know what that is? You know, the only reason I know, and this is guys, this is the benefit of having Quinn as my, as my best friend, is Quinn is a wealth of knowledge. This woman is, oh, thank reading. I know reading assimilating, like, I don't know how many books you read a week, but this is where I get so much of my stuff. So we are gonna drop in around that. I just wanted to stay, first off, just to prep everybody for this episode before we are off to the races that today's episode is gonna be very off the cuff, right? We said kind of going into this Yeah. In, in the community. We introduced couple months ago this intimacy chat format that is very like open, free, flowing, anything goes, all of it gets to be on the table. And we said we were kind of do, gonna do this episode in that way as well. So just, I wanna prep everybody. Okay. That we're gonna be all over the place. I, I said one of the things I was most excited about was just kind of following the rabbit trails with you wherever they might go. So I love it because Quinn just jumped right in and almost sucked me. Into that rabbit hole before I could just, I just, I'm like, I gotta prep everybody of like, just be ready. We're not necessarily gonna be like, here are the huge takeaways as much as it is a, uh, an episode to really let us just vibe with them, right? Mm-hmm. Quinn.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I wanna jump in and explain to my audience if you don't know what community she's talking about. Brita Jo has created this beautiful community called the State or Go Community, where women who. Well, some of your women are doing one-on-one coaching plus the community, but the community is a much more affordable place where you get coaching, you get community. There are monthly workshops you bring in other mentors. It's this very beautiful, safe and juicy place where women go to be held by other women in this cocoon to make this very important decision about whether to stay. Yes or go. Yes. Now, that being said, I get to go in there and play as well, and I find that. I am the recipient of a lot of beautiful information because it's, the decision to stay or go is a big decision, but coming out after divorce, there continues to be a lot of big decisions. Yes, so. Would you accept people who just wanna check out your community and they're already divorced. You know,
Speaker 2:we actually do have women, you know that I have a few previous clients in that, that are in the community for that exact reason for
Speaker 4:mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Wanting to still have connection to women. Oh my God, I love it. We've got fireworks going off in the background of my video right now. What the fuck? I dunno how you did that. But what the fuck did those get turned on in Riverside? Like,
Speaker 3:I dunno.
Speaker 2:Okay. I was not gonna walk past that. I was absolutely gonna have to acknowledge that with you
Speaker 3:right now. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 2:So I think the universe is giving us, it's uh, it's like hurrah that Yeah, it is a space. I mean, you are in there, like I said, a couple other clients that are actually. Post divorce, but you know, we're kind of going through it at the beginning when the community started. Mm-hmm. And actually today we did a coaching call where one of the women on the on the call was mentioning how much it's helped her to have women ahead of like further down the road that are in the community that she's been reaching out to one-on-one that could be like, oh, this is what it was like when I was going through this part. So yeah, it's this gorgeous overlap. I mean, talk about the most amazing dynamic you and I have that we are best friends, we're both coaches. I coach women considering divorce and yours is helping them, you know, launch and glow up afterwards. Yeah. And the community having both of us in it, you know, you do your monthly tarot readings. Mm-hmm. It's just a really gorgeous overlap in place for both of us. So I love you bringing that up and Absolutely. I think this is a space, not only is it for women. The deciding and then going through it. But especially if you've come out of it recently, God, it's just so nice to be in a space with a bunch of other wom, other women who get it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, who are just like, yeah, they get divorced. Um, and that's really the fun of this episode today, is that we're bringing that, that energy I think we have in those intimacy chats of just the like, fuck it. We get to say what we want. We get to feel how we wanna feel. Nobody's having to pretend or put on a front. Like you get to bring all your thoughts, all your feelings about sex, all your questions, all the stuff you wish you could have talked about. Right. The episode title, right? Mm-hmm. The sex talk. Yeah. That we all wish we had, but we weren't supposed to because. Yeah, it's revolutionary to talk about pleasure and intimacy in the way we're gonna do today and the way we do in those spaces. So, fuck yeah. Now that we have gorgeously, by the way, this was, this was all foreplay. Has everybody warmed up? This was, let's go. Yeah. This was the, the foreplay part. Um, okay. So yes, dive us in for those that have not heard of it, into the orgasm gap. So most of us are familiar with the pay
Speaker 3:gap, where women make 70 cents on the dollar for what men do for the exact same work. But there's something called the orgasm gap, where they have seen that in heterosexual relationships, men will say that they always, or usually orgasm 96% of the time, and you ask the women and it drops to half of that. And I would argue that it's actually much, much lower. Just based on my conversations with my sisters. I have seven sisters conversations with, and maybe it's just in these really, um, in the more religious communities where we're not encouraged to seek information. I don't know, but I, I think that there are a lot of women who regularly have sex and do not ever climax.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And even I, well, I love you saying you think it's less, because I also, as you were saying that I was like, I. I thought I was having orgasms. My, my thought was like, okay, you may be having quote in orgasm, but are you actually having a quality orgasm? Like when you're a woman, there's a whole range and scale of orgasms and the quality of those orgasms. Do
Speaker 3:you, do you agree with that? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And there's so many factors. I know that for a lot of the men that I've been with, it's very simple to help them climax and I am a universe unto myself, and yes, queen, there are. There are parts of me that yes, enjoy stimulation, but there are times that impact those parts. You know, how stressed am I? How much foreplay am I really vibing with this person? You know, there's so many other factors. Women's sexuality is more contextual. Is she feeling connected? Is this fully consensual? And that's incredibly important. So if you're in a situation where it's like, I'm willing to have sex with you, but I don't really want to have sex with you, which is where a lot of women land, it's where in marriage I landed In marriage, yes. And I became a student of the female orgasm. Because early on, can we,
Speaker 2:I just have to say. Of course you did. This Quinn is, yes. Quinn is such a student at heart. So tell me more about when and how and why you became a student of
Speaker 3:the orgasm. Okay, so I had premarital sex, Britta, if you can believe it. I know, I know. It's scandalous. Okay. With, for those that don't know, within Mormonism, there's no sex before marriage. And I did not have sex with my future husband before we got married. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. This was
Speaker 3:with another lover. No, no. Yes, yes. I was 20. I had this lovely lover and I thought, have sex, have orgasm. Like we, we were really into each other. It wasn't a long term, it was less than a year that we, we dated and we went our separate ways. But when I married my husband, I was back, wait, wait, wait. Okay. Pause.
Speaker 2:Slow down with me, okay. Okay. Because I lo, I lo I love this. Wait.'cause this is like shocking to me. So you, you are saying that with this partner in your twenties, Uhhuh, you formed this idea having sex equals having an orgasm. Yes. So you were having orgasms with this partner in your twenties?
Speaker 3:Yes. On the regular? Yes. Wow. I can't remember a time I remember talking to one of my married sisters who at this point, I don't know if she knew that she had a clitoris, because I remember that was a really big revelation to her. But I think she already had a child or two, but she hated sex. And I was like, no, sex is great. It's so pleasurable. And she asked me, have you ever orgasmed? I'm like. Yes. I mean, I've been having sex. Isn't that how it works? Oh my God. Um, with her partner, her husband, that was not how it works. The case.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And I, I wanted to pa like, just get that foundation in there because that kind of blows my mind, right? Mm-hmm. I, I definitely came from a different story of not having sex before I was married. And then when I did have sex when I was married, I was someone who orgasm was not related to sex. It was something that had to be done separate, with very specific stimulation. So it, um, we're just gonna have fireworks, this whole, this whole recording. I, I love this episode where I was like, we're just gonna vibe it out. This isn't gonna be structured. Someday when this video gets put up on YouTube.'cause that's what my assistant's working on right now. You will all be able to go watch it on YouTube with the firework effects.
Speaker 3:Yes. Every time we say orgasm, fireworks
Speaker 2:go off. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's so great. Okay, so, so you have this experience in your twenties. Mm-hmm. And for you, you're like, oh, sex equals orgasm. Those two go together. Mm-hmm. Yeah. From there though, you get married and you went, you went back to Mormonism.
Speaker 3:Yes. I, I repented, I had to go and, and we, being best,
Speaker 2:just so you all know, we are being very facetious when we are talking about like, oh my God, you had sex before you got married, or, oh, you repented. Thank goodness. This is our facetious, like we actually were just talking about how it's general conference weekend for our, for our mormon slash ex mos that listen to this, there's this weekend in Mormonism twice a year where we watch like, seriously 10 hours of church broadcasts. It happens to be today, and we are rebelliously, we're recording a podcast about sex instead.
Speaker 3:Yes. Specifically a specific kind of sex, a specific kind mm-hmm. That centers the female orgasm or just pleasure the. Just female pleasure. Yes. Because it doesn't have have to be, it doesn't have to be an orgasm. Orgasm.
Speaker 4:Exactly. Exactly. But our
Speaker 3:pleasure is so important. Yeah. So yes, I got married and I remember after having sex on my wedding night, I was so deeply disappointed and sad and kind of beating myself up like I got married for this.
Speaker 5:Oof.
Speaker 3:I got married very quickly, met to married in three months, which is not unusual within Mormonism. And I think that was the same for you, right? Yeah. Months. Yep. Met married in three months. Yeah, months. So I don't actually know this person. I just knew all that we had dated long enough. I wanted to have sex. So you should get married and away. Yeah. So you get married. Oh my God.
Speaker 4:Oh my God. Quinn, what?
Speaker 2:Just have sex. Don't get married. We were in a cult. Okay. Yeah. So you're like, I think I wanna have, I'm now Mormon again. I think I wanna have sex with this person, which means I need to marry them. You marry, and the sex sounds like it's awful. It's
Speaker 3:just awful. Awful. But I'm like, I've gotta figure this out. Like this isn't just for this life in Mormonism, this is for eternity there. And there's no teachings about, well, if you have bad sex in this life, you're gonna have great sex forever. Like, just shit,
Speaker 2:we gotta, we gotta figure this out now because I just, I picked this for eternity and I know, yeah, this, this would be so hard because you actually knew it could be good. I, yes. I didn't know it could be good. So when you don't know, it can be good. And it sucks. You know, innocence is kind of bliss. It's not bliss, but it's much less worse than if you knew it was good. But notice this is so fascinating to me. Your, your mental reaction wasn't, oh fuck, I married the wrong person. It's, I need to figure this out. Like, wait, take me there. I need to figure this out.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And I think within Mormonism, some of the teachings within Mormonism started to really come to bear because I found out very quickly that my husband was not a man that should be trusted in a lot of areas. But marriage is so important in Mormonism. It is such a foundational, like second class citizen, if you're not married a hundred percent you want to be married. Yeah, true. And that's a marriage. Is the most important thing, not the individuals in the marriage and successful marriages are the ones with longevity, not people being happy, not people liking each other, much less loving each other. No, it's just, are you married? Do you have children? Are you checking these boxes? But it was, it was incredibly unfulfilling. But I, I really kept trying, I did not want to have a sexless marriage. I knew I didn't wanna be one of those women who used sex as a weapon. Like, if I'm angry with you, I'm not gonna have sex. I was like, yeah, I would never, I would never do that. Mm-hmm. And so I never lived through a sexless marriage, but I lived through years without pleasure. And it's not to say that it was completely without pleasure, but there was, I didn't have an orgasm with my husband for 10 years. 10 years. And I was married to a three. But when I would bring it up to him and try to teach him like, can we talk about our sex life? It was really difficult for him because he had that same shaming sort of background from Mormonism about sex. And I was his second wife. Not, you know, at the same time. So we didn't, we don't have,
Speaker 4:oh my God. Put that out there. I
Speaker 2:know. The fact that you had to be clear we're, we're, we're from the Mormons, but not from that specific section. Not the Mormons, not that we're judging.'cause it's all, in our opinion, it's all pretty fucked up. So, yeah. But no second wife, not at the same time. Yes.
Speaker 3:There, he had one divorce before the one I gave him, but his first wife, he claims his first wife had an orgasm every time they had sex. And I was like, um, I'm pretty sure she didn't. And he's like, no, she did, she did. I would know if she was faking. Oh. I'm like, do you know if I am faking. He didn't. Oh, oh my
Speaker 4:God.
Speaker 3:It's just what it was. But his idea was he was fine. Like in his mind, as long as a man has an erection, he's fine. Like the woman should be able to orgasm. And
Speaker 4:when I think about his sexual, so wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 3:wait,
Speaker 2:wait, wait. Okay. Yeah. So literally his understanding of of sex orgasm for a woman was, as long as my penis is hard and I stick it in you, you should be able, I mean, you just stick the hard thingy in the whole thingy and it works.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Bada bing, bada boom. And I'm getting off
Speaker 2:every time. So obviously you're not working your whole correctly.
Speaker 3:Exactly. Exactly. Wow. And this was a farm boy. He was, he was not ever, um, taught about sex from his parents. It was, there's the bowl, there's the cow. This is how it's done. You climb up on top and he sticks it in and you get a calf. Wow. And of course the cow loves it. And so, you know, I'm the cow in the situation. Oh my God. And then he goes to college. And is exposed to pornography, which is very much stick the penis in male, male-centric
Speaker 2:women are just, you know, so turned on by your dick. Just need voracious. You do not need to invest any foreplay to warm that creature up. No,
Speaker 3:no. Always ready. Always ready. Yeah. So I started to dive into books written by urologists, sex therapists.
Speaker 2:Oh my
Speaker 3:God,
Speaker 2:queen. Try and
Speaker 3:figure out is there something wrong with me? And that's when I discovered. I'm not the only one that can have an orgasm with certain people and not with other people or in certain situations, not in other situations that it's part of the magic of being me and this feminine body that I have. It's, there's nothing broken. Oof. Let's, it's that the partnership wasn't working.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Let's come back before we, of course that's where you landed.'cause here we are on this podcast, you know, laughing our heads off at like, no, this is not how it is. But going back to, you know, I just wanna take a second to dive in to what I think both you and I feel is so heartbreaking, which is that your response, the overarching message that you got was, there's something wrong with me and I feel like that is. I struggled with it myself as well. Definitely, you know, in, in my marriage. Um, I was never able to orgasm while having penetrative sex. Mm-hmm. Um, it was always something where it was like, you know, he got off first and then, you know, because I was so programmed by Mormonism to not even like, feel like I could touch my body. Right.'cause masturbation is not okay.
Speaker 5:Yeah. In Mormonism.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I'd have to have him touch me to get off. And often it'd be after he orgasm, so he'd be falling asleep. You know, I'd have
Speaker 4:frustrating.
Speaker 2:Well, and just like you're, you're trapped in this world where nobody is validating. Your, that you have a right to feel pleasure. Mm-hmm. There's no support, there's no, um, you know, especially for us, obviously this isn't gonna be everybody's experience, but because we came from such a anti pleasure, anti-sex religion, there is no support amongst the women in your community for understanding your body. Understanding, pleasure, understanding. I think, was it your mom? Like what was your mom's take on sex for you?
Speaker 3:It was clear early on that she was very uneducated about it. Um, she told me that if I put my hand on a boy's leg, his penis would get hard. And so make sure you don't do that. She gave me a little pamphlet when I was in the ninth grade about masturbation, but it referred to masturbation as self-abuse. And so I didn't know what it was talking about. I didn't know I had a clitoris until I had that first lover who had had lovers before me. Mm-hmm. And that's where I learned about my own body, my own pleasure. But I was, I had several sisters who were married and having children and no orgasms, didn't know that they had a clitoris, didn't know that there are more nerves in the head of a clitoris than in the penis. Like we are made for pleasure and not just our clitoris, our entire body is made. Yeah. For pleasure to be here, fully embodied. And so, and I got the idea very early on and until the death of my father, which was I think four years ago, that, um, she did not really enjoy sex. And I don't know if it was, didn't enjoy sex or didn't enjoy sex with my father because that was Well, and had she had
Speaker 2:sex with any Exactly. She hadn't had sex with anybody else. That is also the huge tragedy of purity culture. Mm-hmm. And like you said, we were talking about this a little bit earlier where you were like, oh my God, we both have discussed this whole, like what a. What a racket. This whole idea of you gotta marry this one dude and stay married to him, and how much that benefits men who have this one way of pleasure. That doesn't take that much to figure out. But if you are the complexity of a woman's pleasure of your body and you happen to get stuck with a partner who Yeah. Doesn't know what he's doing, and we have the whole range of that, right? We have partners who, you know, you got one end of the spectrum or, or men who just don't fucking care. You're like, you. Mm-hmm. I don't, I don't give a shit about your pleasure. You're here for me. Mm-hmm. And then you even, but you have men on the other end who like are interested and want to. But, but then you have to weed through all of the, the conditioning like you and I had. Right. All of the shame around it, all of the programmed beliefs, all of the just energy dynamics, right? Yeah. When you have a partner who's unsure or is asking you about your body, but you don't even know about your own body,
Speaker 3:right? And for you to take the reins and explore your body is considered a sin within the Mormon temple ceremony, you make these promises that, um, you wouldn't have sexual relationships with anyone other than the person to whom you are legally and lawfully married. And my dad, he was one of the, they call it a bishop, so the head of a congregation. And he told me early on that that promise includes yourself, like. That's why what it's like, do not masturbate. You are promising. You will not masturbate. You'll only do anything sexual with the person to whom you are married. And the only way I got to experience an orgasm with my husband was by. Getting myself like self pleasuring and then penetrative sex, and then sometimes I could orgasm with him, which I loved. I loved it so much. Yeah. The first time I was able to come with him inside me, it was so incredible. But it was work. It was so much work, and it was all. All on. It was on me. Yes. Yeah. Which is weird because I mean, with Mormonism, like you said, they are super shameful about sex, and yet they want people pumping out the babies. Yep. Well, guess what, boys? This is how the babies come. My God. But I also learned that other women were suffering as well. I was in several mom groups over the years with very, very faithful Mormon women, and it was in those rooms that they started to talk about how they didn't have orgasms or they were living in sexless marriages because they didn't have the energy. They didn't have the desire, and they saw no need for it, or their husband didn't want to touch them anymore. There's a variety of reasons.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I love you making. This point because as you're saying this, I'm like, oh my God, this is what was a huge opening moment for me too, was when I was in a book group of women from my church and after book group, some nights it would just, you know, we'd start talking about that stuff and it was, as I started to hear the stories of other women, and in my instance it was my, you know, my friends in that group being like, oh no, that doesn't sound normal. What do you mean? It's like that? Oh, what do you mean it's often really painful? What do you, you know?'cause I experienced a lot of pain with sex. Mm. I realize now that's because I need so much more. My body just naturally has a tightness and I don't know if that's part of that sexual trauma from childhood, but it is naturally tight and it needs a partner really taking. His time with it to soften and be ready for anything to penetrate me. But it was having other women finally letting me peek behind the curtain of their life, which takes me to our, you know, I'm thinking like, yeah. The intimacy chats in the community where you start realizing I'm not alone, I'm not broken.
Speaker 5:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Oh, and there are women out there that are experiencing good sex. Mm-hmm. And it seems to be like they have different partners.
Speaker 3:Right. Yeah. What has amazed me in watching the women that you coach is that many of them have a fair partners in order to stay in their marriages.
Speaker 5:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:It's like it makes their marriage livable because they have someone with whom they can experience what they wish they had in their marriage. Yes. And I had never seen that aspect before. Um, interacting with some of those women.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And just same. Mm-hmm. What a gift. The doing the work I do because I have now really seen for myself and, and been able to realize like, and change that belief around like, oh, this is just an extra like, you know, Mormonism taught me sex is an extra, it's, or, you know, and not sex pleasure orgasms. They're an extra. Yeah. I now for myself, live from a belief of like, oh no, no, this is like. Top two for me of favorite parts of being in a human body. Like if I am gonna have to go through all that's entailed in being a human in this life. I mean, there's a lot of shit we all have to go through. There's stress, there's all the pieces. Yeah. I, I sure as hell want this section of my life, one of the juiciest, most enjoyable parts. And that's really, as you know, that's why I left my marriage because it was like, I want to ick, you know, I did not, in my instance have an affair partner. And actually I would say, you know, a little bit different from yours. I thought sex was pretty good in my marriage. I've said this before on the podcast. I just know now in comparison, like wholly shit. Yeah. It can be so much better. Yes. Mm-hmm. Right, like whole different universe, like, you know, spent your whole life living in a country, not realizing there was an entire world out there, and then traveling the world and being like, oh my God. And, and instead of making that seem like in religion, like a bad thing, right? I think religion really paints pleasure as sin, and you need to avoid the things you desire. It's bad of you to want to travel the world being like, oh no, fuck you. I'm taking my passport back. And I'm reclaiming my right to my own body and my pleasure and my desire and getting to center that as one of the most important experiences of my life.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes. And I think a lot of women post-divorce, they're really nervous about having a new sexual partner. And I would just like to say that partner is also probably nervous and that's okay. It's just part of being human and experiencing all of these different things. But one of the things that I really love at the age I am, so I'm 53, that when I came out into the world of dating and I was just so excited to taste the 31 flavors, and I remember being surprised. At the amount of erectile dysfunction. And at first I was like, wm, wm because I couldn't have the kind of sex that I thought had I wanted.
Speaker 2:That you had been trained to believe. Yes. Right. It's gotta have a hard dick for it to be good.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes. But what I found this early on lover, he,'cause I, I found that in my marriage there were times where I just wanted to get through it so I could go to sleep or get through it. So he's done so I could take care of myself. But I found that there was this, there was this lover and I remember making out with him and like moving it on quickly towards the process of penetration. And he's like, let's just stay right here. Oh, there's no place we have to go. And just slowing me way, way down and just slowing down is so pleasurable. Especially in a world where women have to go, go, go, or take care of the kids or take care of the spouse or take care of the house. Like there's so much over function. Yes. Yes. So to have a partner who's like, okay, we're gonna put on some lo-fi and we're just going to touch each other and explore. And I'm like, we can do this. And you're not upset that we're not getting to the penetration For real. Yeah. Like and older men in the age range that I'm dating, they've got a few decades of life and their penises don't work like they did in their twenties. And that's great because then now they're centering my pleasure. Hmm. They're looking for all the ways that they can pleasure a woman, at least in my experience, rather than, oh, hard Dick in whole, it's like, what else can I do? How else can I love you? How else can I pleasure you? What, what sounds fun to you? My, my most recent lover, he was so great at wanting to continue to educate himself or to try new toys or look up different kinks. Do you wanna try this? What would you be comfortable with? Let's both fill out this questionnaire and see where we match and just be so playful, like it doesn't have to be so fucking serious. This is something sex womanism
Speaker 2:was so serious. So serious and something I have loved about you from the beginning. That's always been a little different. I still am like very romantic about sex and very all, and I always loved your, just like you would tell me you would like burst out laughing in the middle of something.
Speaker 4:Oh, for
Speaker 3:sure. For sure. Yes. I think sex is hilarious. The noises, the sounds, the facial expressions. I think it's hilarious. And so, yes, and sometimes I will just laugh with delight. Yes. At the pleasure or the surprise when he pulls out a belt and I'm like, oh my gosh, I didn't see that
Speaker 2:coming. Yeah. Which is. Not the case when you are with partners who are insecure about performance. Yes, because if you don't fake it correctly, if you at all, I mean, when you talked about having to kind of hang in there during sex, I remember that being a thing for me. And even post being married sex, I definitely had partners that I just, that's what I knew was, you know, okay, he's getting close. I'm starting to get raw. This isn't feeling all that great, but I'm definitely not gonna stop now. I'm not gonna stop him now right before he's gonna come. I'm just gonna grit my teeth and hang in there until he finishes and. What, and this is making me think too, and we'll talk about this a little bit later when we dive into this book, but that point you made the book you're gonna share later, what is it called? It's like the Tragedy of heterosexuality. There we go.
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Where she says women become complicit in their own abuse, in their own orgasm gaps. Mm-hmm. Because we participate in forcing ourselves to tolerate that to not Yeah. Um, or, or even, you know, just staying with partners who are less than what. We want most when it comes to someone sexually.
Speaker 3:Yes. I think it's fascinating when you look on Reddit and there are these forums where you can say what makes someone good in bad or what makes someone bad in bad. And so there was this forum where it was, what does a man mean by bad sex? If you had bad sex with a partner And for the man it was, well, she didn't initiate, she wasn't really into it. She, she just laid there. And that's bad sex for a man. You ask the women what is bad sex for you? And they're talking about pain, they're talking about non-consent, they're talking about fucking abuse. Mm-hmm. And yet do you leave those partners? I would argue that it would be a good idea to consider.
Speaker 2:Yes. And that most of us don't because we have been programmed to believe the problem is me. Yeah. You know, I thought for years the problem, the, the reason I was having pain was because there must be, I must have a tiny vagina. I must. Mm-hmm. Just I know now that is bullshit. That's because, yeah. It's that your
Speaker 3:ex had a huge dick That was the problem. Plus your tiny vagina.
Speaker 2:Exactly right. That's what the patriarchy would tell me. It's'cause I have such a big dick. I'm sorry. No, the problem is that you don't understand and nor do I, how my body works and the level of warming up that machine. Before we get to that point, because of the lack of education, the, yeah. All of the myths. There's still so many myths around sex for most of us. Yeah. Which let's, which will just take us, I think we should just jump straight into it, which takes me to that book, the Tragedy of Heterosexuality that you mentioned to me this week. Tell Take us, dive us in. This book kind of blew my mind. We haven't read it yet, but you read an article on it, right?
Speaker 3:Yes. It's an article and I wanna tell you guys exactly what it is. In case you have Apple newsfeed, you'll be able to read it. But it was from New York Magazine and it's called Do Straight Women Really Exist? And it was talking about this woman who wrote the book that we talked about, the tragedy of heterosexuality and women being complicit in is this situation.
Speaker 2:Which is Jane Ward, by the way. That's her name. Jane Ward. Thank
Speaker 3:you. And she is teaching a class on how to be good allies to heterosexuals because, especially heterosexual women, because of how bad our life sucks with the amount of emotional labor in being partnered with a man, the amount of physical labor, the orgasm gap, the lack of alignment in our values and how us staying and us not negotiating. So she's not arguing for everyone needs to just be having sex. Women need to be having sex with other women. It's that we need to really examine the beliefs, the underlying assumptions that we're coming into the relationship with.
Speaker 5:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:And. Asking, is this what I want? I definitely had the idea that men need sex. Men need, yeah. There's a, there's a myth. Orgasms.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 3:But mean, and if you
Speaker 2:don't, if you don't give it to them, they become mean.
Speaker 3:Yes. Yes. And they'll go find someone else to have sex with. Mm-hmm. Like, oh, she let herself go. He wanted to go find someone else to have sex with. He, he traded for a younger sexual partner. You know, that's just part of our collective psyche and our culture. But for the woman, like, I didn't see my pleasure as being important, as being necessary for my functioning, but it absolutely is all part of that. Orgasms and pleasure are absolutely necessary for our health, for our wellbeing.
Speaker 2:All part of that myth, right? I think that other book, the The one that you, which one is it? Yeah, hold it up. What is that one? Vitamin O. There we go. Vitamin O. That's where you're getting those ideas, right? That orgasm is absolutely vital for women's health. That is another myth that we don't need them, that you, or even the idea that you're broken if you can't have them, or it's so complicated, and when you're with a partner who can't figure it out, well, I just must be super complicated and yet then you go meet a partner who knows what the fuck he's doing, and you're like, wow, I seem to be really uncomplicated. In fact, he's kind of like, wow, 10 orgasms later. I don't seem to be too complicated for this one. Right. So yeah. So what's really going on there? Layers and layers of myth and yeah. I wanted to mention when you said, you know, so in the book, I love that she comes from this idea where she's saying like, we need support groups for heterosexual women. Yeah.
Speaker 3:More and more of us are talking about the challenges. I mean, we were given the fairytale be the one that's chosen, you know, you get your wedding day and then it's happily ever after. And so many of us are calling bullshit.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I, I was, I was reading kind of a synopsis on it and I loved that it said. That how she does that is she draws from the queer perspectives and she's saying like, in queer culture, often mutual respect is emphasized. Open communication and these like egalitarian dynamics within the relationship. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, like you said, it's not that she's saying women need to be with women, but she's saying in queer relationships you are getting a much higher standard of egalitarian treatment and prioritization of your pleasure as well. That if you're in a heteronormative relationship with a man, you could severely be like far below. And the majority of the women that you and I work with, I know the, you know, the women listening to this get that a lot of you are like. Yeah, I haven't had good sex in years. I, I haven't been having sex. I have a, I have clients right now who haven't had sex with their husband in like four plus years. Oh my God. Yeah. This is, this is the myth, the, the idea, right. And who not only are not having, either they're not having good sex or they're not having sex at all in their marriage and are terrified that if they leave. There will be nothing else out there either. That is the myth that like, yeah. Oh, just be content with what you got because you're so complex and broken. No one out there will know how to work you or help you figure it out.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, there is that sunk cost fallacy where I've invested so much in helping my partner learn about my pleasure and I don't wanna start over teaching someone else. And I get that, oh my gosh, down to my core. I get that because I saw that my partner, my husband, he was not interested in trying to learn. Now, to his credit, I mean, I think there was a part of him that wanted to, but he had so much shame and so much of his own work that he was not willing to look at that. I mean, just. Talking to him about sex was excruciating. Just excruciating. You could see the little boy in him come up that was so afraid of doing something wrong and I'm not man enough and you know, real men should be able to pleasure their partner or whatever. And then yeah, that's forced by the church. And I mean, there's just so much there to unpack. And he just wasn't in a place to unpack that. And that is, but not
Speaker 2:everybody has that baggage. That is the tr Exactly. Not everybody has that baggage. That is the, like one of the biggest takeaways that I think you and I have both learned coming out of our marriages.
Speaker 5:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Uh, understanding the tragedy of patriarchy. Yeah.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 2:Which is patriarchy has fucked up sex. And then when you mix patriarchy with religion, oh my God, just like, no, no, no, no, I can't. Mm-hmm. Um, it, because, you know, on the flip side, I, I experienced a lot of that too. I would say I had a partner when in my marriage who was especially towards the end, very eager and wanted to figure that out with me. But it's the whole, how much trauma and programming are we dealing with in each person, combined with all the shit we've already been through in this marriage where we were just kind of knocking around and tearing each other up because we didn't know what we were doing. Yeah. And, and then when you try to go into a place that is as vulnerable as I am letting you into my body. Mm. Right. I, I feel so much gratitude that I just finally was like, I'm hanging up the towel. I, I even have a willing partner, somebody who's like,
Speaker 5:yeah,
Speaker 2:help me figure it out. And I am so there's too much water under the bridge for me to truly be able to psychologically drop down and feel safe enough. And I know that now because with,
Speaker 3:yeah,
Speaker 2:my current partner where, you know, we could start from a fresh relationship and we could build that trust bit by bit. And he is someone who already has, you know, all of the experience of decades and decades and decades of relationships and learning and investing and figuring it out with other women. Oh my God. Just have to like. Side note, this makes me think Dua Lipa has a song called Maria, and I love it because it's all about her saying basically to this woman Maria, who was her partner's previous partner, thank you. Like he is who he is because of you. Mm-hmm. And so this gratitude for all of the women that were part of my partner's previous experiences that now, right. Like what a radically different viewpoint from what we were raised in Mormonism, which is like, Ew, you had sex before marriage. Ew. You're not the only person I've had sex with. Man, if somebody were to tell me I was there first, I'd be like, Ooh. Right. Yeah. Now, now I'm like, Hmm. It's a, it's gonna be a, it's a no, it's a hard pass for me. It's gonna be a hard pass for me. It's a little bit too much work. I'm kind of enjoying not having to, to train anybody at this point. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3:yeah.
Speaker 5:I agree.
Speaker 3:One of the things in the book that I think is interesting is her point that oftentimes when a system does not work or a product does not work in a capitalist society, we let it fail. I. We let it go bankrupt. We don't keep doing it now. We keep doing heterosexual bad sex marriages in large part because of our tradition of doing it during, during a time when my own mother, when she gave birth to me in 1971, she did not have the right to get her own bank account without her husband's signature. I've had extensive conversations with her about why she stayed with my father and he was a good guy, but I do not. Believe that they were in love with each other, happy. Or that it was a good partnership, but they had 10 kids of it, which, you know, holy gets you into shit, you know, highest level of Mormon heaven. And so I look at these past traditions that we have of women putting up with so much pain and so much bullshit and truly, truly being trapped. And we have that collective generational trauma.
Speaker 5:Yes. Of
Speaker 3:women not being heard, being used as property. You're just a help meet. You're not an actual person. He's not interested in knowing you. He's just interested in having sex with a female body. And so now we are the generation that has more choices. And I'm not saying these are easy choices. That obviously now you should leave your partner. I'm not saying that, but we have different perspectives on what a relationship could look like. Yes. In large part because of the queer community, because we're seeing that, oh, you can be in a romantic partnership, you can have a marriage, you can have children, and it doesn't have to look like this. Yeah. The way we have defined it in heterosexual marriage,
Speaker 2:this is, this is the gift of Glennon Doyle. I mean, you know, this is a gift of so many people, but the, the person that comes to mind at the forefront of that for me is Glennon Doyle and Untamed. I mean, that anthem of not only am I going to step away from being the, you know, golden child Christian, pretending like everything's great, brainwashing myself into staying while things are actually really bad. But saying, I'm gonna trust myself and I'm gonna trust myself so much to go after a relationship with a woman that I love. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And completely change the narrative around my entire life and how inspiring that is for everybody who reads that book. It is the anthem of letting go of these myths of what should make you happy. Right? And really actually being honest of, I am in this marriage that looks this way. Am I actually happy if, what am I. What am I gonna do about it?
Speaker 3:Yes. What are you going to do about it? You don't have to do nothing. Yeah. You have choices. We have choices. And I think one of the important ways to find people, because I think community is the way to start making different choices. I agree. As we see other women make a different choice, like Glennon and the women who go to your podcast and go to your community and go, oh my God, I'm not alone. It's possible. Yeah. Or people looking at me and going, you have kids and you're in school and you have great sex. Like how? And you have lovers. It's possible and like, yes, yes, it's possible, but I didn't start here. But it's possible. And to show what's possible, it's, it's part of the magic. Just to know that. Whatever you're dealing with. If it's not to your liking, babe, R 31 flavors. You don't always have to eat vanilla. I mean you can.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And Rocky Roads fun too.
Speaker 3:And
Speaker 2:this is the biggest, I think this was like the heart of what we were really feeling with this episode was wanting to be a voice for updating.'cause it feels like a lot of us in, in marriages that are sexless or without pleasure or desire, or in marriages where you're having sex. But it is more about, you know, keeping him well oiled and not so grumpy.
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm. And
Speaker 2:just hanging in there through it. It's waking up to this. Is generational trauma being enacted out in your life right now and does it actually match the reality of you as an adult? Because there are a lot of women that I meet now. You know, you and I were a little bit different'cause man, we got fucked over by that cult that did not mm-hmm. Teach us to be anything other than stay-at-home moms. But there are a lot of women now that have careers, that have jobs that can actually safely leave. And still have a home over their head. Yeah. And still have the things they need. It doesn't mean you have to have that.'cause you and I both taken the other route. Right. Even without that. Yeah. Finding a way, being like, I want this so bad, whatever it is.'cause we didn't even know what it was at that point. Like fuck yeah. Us. Right. We had literally no one at that point to look to saying, babe, you deserve this. At least I hadn't. I hadn't found a voice like that. No. We just. Trekked off into the wilderness. And now that we're out here, we're like, oh my God, it's so much better.
Speaker 3:So much
Speaker 2:better. It's so much better. But the re the reality, it's kinda like my episode last week was all about this. When we start living our lives from past internal trauma and acting from that, instead of really what is the reality in front of me? Mm-hmm. And the reality for so many of these women, Quinn. Right? I mean, so many of the women I meet, I'm like, oh my God. They are brilliant. They are gorgeous. I can't tell you how many women are like, I'm too old. And I'm like, home.
Speaker 4:Stop. Right. Stop.
Speaker 3:Stop.
Speaker 4:Stop, like
Speaker 3:sex and menopause is so great. You're not worried about pregnancy number one. Oh
Speaker 4:my
Speaker 3:God. And then your pleasure. And, and you can pull from any, like if you want to be popping the cherry of virgins, like if that is your thing, you can, yes. That sounds terrible. But you'd like to have someone that is, you know, just a friend with benefits. Like everything is available to you. Yes. Even remarriage if that's what you want. Yes. It really is all available. And so really good guys. You know, I don't think they're all terrible. Really, really great guys, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. I, I, I truly believe, looking back at our dating experiences, we, this goes back to the whole, you know, you're gonna hear. Uh, people get divorced and talk about how awful it is. People date after divorce and talk about how awful it is. I got divorced, I fucking loved it. I dated post-divorce. I fucking loved it. So, right. Yes. So you guys know a lot of that comes from coaching yourself and managing your brain and getting the resources to, you know, handle the attachment things that come up. It's this gorgeous journey of, I think why we had such a good time is because you and I weren't out hunting for the guy.
Speaker 5:Right.
Speaker 2:We were more for the experiences. Like, I don't know what I like, I don't know, and Exactly. Mm-hmm. Got to date some really young ones got to have some sex that was like, man, not gonna do that again. Dated a guy who, his friends called him tuna can, and I was like, my vagina has had enough. It can't breathe. Do you remember that? You can You remember that Gwen? That was my very Oh, that's right. The guy with a really
Speaker 3:small penis. Like the really
Speaker 2:small with the, with the Really? Yes. It was not long. It was just super wide. It was wide. He had a lot of whips. It was so wide. My vulva was like, no,
Speaker 3:I'm not gonna do that again.
Speaker 2:Never went back there. Never tried that again. I was like, that flavor has been blacklisted.
Speaker 3:Yeah. No tuna we're not.
Speaker 2:No, no tuna. So, but, but what was gorgeous about it is you and I took it on as a way to shed the programming that, that gorgeous energy of like, this is my life and I'm here to show up and it's gonna be messy and it's gonna be weird. There's gonna be tuna cans, there's gonna be. Moments where I look back and I'm like, oh, I don't know if I'd do that again. But we can chalk that one up to experience,
Speaker 3:right? To do those things and to know I am safe. I am safe. Because women get so many horror stories about dating and diseases and murders. Yeah. But guess what? If you got divorced, you are now away from the man who's most likely to murder you. So congratulations today statistically
Speaker 2:exactly right. Statistically, you are actually safer. Statistically. It's crazy when we think about it that way. And I would offer, you know, in a lot of ways, this is what she's talking about with us being trained towards heterosexual marriages, is we think we're staying in a place that's quote, safer.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But. What she lays out is you could, you know, like you have on the podcast previously where you said marriage knocks off years from a woman's life. You are doing all this emotional labor potentially for your partner that you just don't even understand because you've never experienced something else.
Speaker 3:Yeah. You've never had the equality in the relationship. For most of us, you've just assumed the position and just continued to swallow and swallow and. Let's, let's shut the mouth. Let's stop swallowing. Yes, we do have a choice, but you said something really interesting about how when you got divorced in your dating process, you didn't know what you wanted, what you liked, and I think that's very common for women coming out of a marriage, but also just women in midlife or at any point. Oh my God, yes. In motherhood to just be like, we've been told what we're supposed to, like we've been told to dress this way, and to look this way and be chosen and all of these things, and to come out the other side and go, I don't even know myself. How can I expect a partner to know me when I don't even know myself? Which brings me to this. Fabulous TV show that I wanna talk about. Can I talk about that? Yes,
Speaker 2:yes, please. I haven't even watched it yet, y'all, but Quinn talking about it. I, and I went and watched the trailer just before I'm the trailer alone. I was like squealing with joy.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's an FX series called Dying for Sex. It's streaming on Hulu is where I found it. And this woman, she had breast cancer and it was in remission. She's married, but she's in this sexless marriage where her husband doesn't want to touch her. She really wants to have sex with him. She's trying to have sex with him. But every time he touches her breasts, he cries and loses his, his erection. And so when they are sitting in couples therapy. She gets a phone call finding out her cancer has come back metastasized. It's in her bones. She's gonna die sooner than later. And she's speaking to a counselor and says, I haven't even had an orgasm with another person in my entire life. And the girl's like, okay, that's something for your bucket list. I love that part. And so she starts exploring. She doesn't get divorced. Um, she knows she's gonna die, but the the female friendship is so beautiful. Her imagination, her desires, the things she's willing to try because she knows she's going to die. And the thing is, whether you believe this is. The life then that you will die and then go on to eternity to live as a eunuch, praising God, or if you get multiple lifetimes. All we know for sure is that you have this life and we don't know how much of it. Don't fucking waste it. You don't have to like, ah, what if we knew? What if you knew I've got one more week and I want to experience, I want to feel, because this character in this TV show, she wants to feel instead of her husband talking to the doctor and arranging her care. She's like, no. No, I want to decide. I want to be the liver of my life. Ooh. Yes. I want to be the one that is alive and that's what I want for women post-divorce is for them to come alive. They've taken one of the hardest steps. Mm-hmm. By ending a relationship that is really important in our society, going it on their own. Yeah. There's so much life left to live. Holy
Speaker 2:shit is there
Speaker 3:like
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Quinn, you and I have lived more life post-divorce than I ever lived in all the years before.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like. Without a doubt, and I love you bringing up, I just, I realized like this is really the theme, sex pleasure, desire because sex when it's really good, that is, that is like some of the heights of aliveness. Yes. Of oneness, of being present. Yes. And co in your body. And so I really do see this as this like really gorgeous golden thread that really unites the whole journey of considering divorce, actually getting divorced, and then post-divorce, like it never goes away. The importance of this thread, it's, we see it at all stages of it, and I think that's because this is the other piece that has really come through, I think for both you and me in the years post-divorce, as we've explored our sexuality more as we've reconnected with what pleasure means. Mm-hmm. Is realizing. Mm-hmm. It's not just sex with a partner like this is aeros. Mm-hmm. This is life force energy that we seem to be able to tap into at the deepest depths when we are eliciting orgasms or pleasure in our body. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Ultimately, you know, the vitamin effect of orgasms for me is that I feel more alive in my daily life and I show up more myself.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Connected into pleasure.
Speaker 3:Yes. And something that orgasm does for women is that it shuts down your fear centers. And so many women considering divorce and post-divorce are in so much fear about finances, their kids, their health, what happens if or when. And so a regular practice of pleasure and orgasm, I mean, I don't want to, I know that there are some women who really struggle with orgasming, so I don't want you to deny yourself pleasure if orgasm is off the table for you. Yeah. But if you can reach orgasm, or if you're willing to be really curious about it because maybe you think you're asexual and you know. I'm currently self partnered and so it's given me a chance to sink back into my own self. Pleasuring. Yes. What does that look like? Falling in love with the creature that I am, this person that I am. It, it's such a beautiful journey. It doesn't have to be with a partner, it doesn't have to be orgasm. Mm-hmm. But I think there are some particular benefits for the women we speak to of regularly orgasming. But that being said, I wanna share another statistic with you.
Speaker 5:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:50% of adult women are ashamed to touch their own bodies. Yeah. Do you think that's high or low? Or do you think that's about right?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's so hard for me to ever. Give my, because I, we come from such a heavy cultural, religious Yeah. Hundred percent Mormons are Yeah. A hundred percent. Mormons are like, no, I am, don't even, I'm not touching myself. Don't not touching.'cause I'm a good girl. I was a really good girl, girl, you know, quote, good, good girl growing up did not touch myself. Yeah. It's heavily, heavily shamed. So, no, I'm not sur I'm not surprised that half of most women, I mean, while you were talking about this, it really, it took me back to our workshop last month with Rene Chapman and, and that resource, now it's beautiful. We have it in the community as exclusive content, but her whole focus of that workshop was discussing, understanding those different erotic energies in your body and connecting into self pleasure with you. Mm-hmm. Like, and, and here's the thing too. I, this is a rabbit hole I've gotta go down with you. Okay. Which is, I don't know about you, but growing up, and especially in my marriage, like vibrators and toys were like taboo, no-nos. If you needed those and your husband's stick wasn't enough.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:Shame on you.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So much shame, so much. Shame
Speaker 2:so much, so much shame. So when I had, you know, even, I mean, I would say my Joe, Joe is the one that was really like, why don't we start using other things? And I remember being like, oh, okay. Because I had used those a lot on my own, some. Mm-hmm. I'd used them some post-divorce, but I did not have partners that I had sex with post-divorce that were like, grab your vibrator. You know? Yeah. Like let's, I had, I really did not run into any partners that understood and were that focused on my pleasure. Like, yes, I had good sex post-divorce, but thank God, as you will attest, Quinn, that I, in each relationship didn't stop there. That I kept Yeah. Trusting where life was leading me as it led me into more and more and greater and greater alignment with a partner who mm-hmm. Now I love that. Mm-hmm. There is no, he has no ego around. Mm-hmm. How my pleasure comes and that it has to come from him.
Speaker 3:Yes. Right. Like, the pleasure is the center. Yeah. Which kind of, you know, it's kind of blowing my mind how we stay in marriages without pleasure because the marriage. Is centered, like the people aren't necessarily important. Just the marriage is centered. Coming to more alignment with ourselves, our values, our partners, to where our pleasure is centered and it makes for a richer life. It makes for richer relationships, deeper trust, more embodiment to where all of life, it's like you go from black and white to technicolor. Oh my God,
Speaker 2:yes. Yeah. Absolute technicolor. It, it just can't. I so glad that we're talking so openly about this because the world we came from. Yeah. We had no idea that there, that level even existed.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, that you really could end up in a space and, and I think we're incredible examples of it because we came from such heavily Right. Shut down. Not in your body. Don't touch your body. Yeah. To now you can feel it in the way we talk about it. Like sex is, uh, it's my favorite thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It's, it's, uh, I feel like it's my birthright to have pleasure.
Speaker 2:Pleasure, yes. In the way I want desire. Exactly. And I,
Speaker 3:yeah.
Speaker 2:That is the gift of going on, like you said in this, this Hulu show. Mm-hmm. It, I'm sure I haven't seen it yet, but it, the difficulty, right. The pushback. Mm-hmm. The people who don't get it, the people who don't understand it, like. Nobody is gonna get this. Really? Mm-hmm. No, I don't think, thankfully, you know, my parents aren't in my life anymore, but I don't think my parents or my siblings or would really get me being like, pleasure. And having a partner that I have incredible sex with is like number one on my list if I'm choosing a partner.
Speaker 5:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:If I, if that's not possible, I'm not gonna be in a partnership.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. It's not all about love or this person is a good guy, bad guy. It's like, does it work like you might be married or dating or, you know, partnered with a quote unquote good guy, good person. Mm-hmm. Cares about your pleasure and it still just might not work. Nope. And it's not a commentary on either one of you.
Speaker 5:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:It's not all male, all female. Line'em up, put'em together. It all works. It just doesn't work like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. And when it doesn't work, being willing to say, I'm not going to settle. This is an area that's important enough in my life. And of course there's all the variables, you know?'cause I'm thinking we have a lot of women in the community who's affair partners they're having banging sex with. Right. The intimacy is off the charts, but there's not all the other pieces. Yeah. So that's, that, that's that part of understanding and like you said, centering your life, your pleasure. Yeah. I mean that was really the relationship before I met Joe. Right. I was having great sex with that. The, you know, I have to put great sex in air quotes around all of these previous partners because now compared to the sex I have now, it, it's, we're not even in the same category. Yeah. But at the time it was the best sex I'd ever had and I really didn't wanna let that go. And I was allowing, you know, abusive dynamics to stay in that relationship because I was afraid of it never being that good again. Yes,
Speaker 3:yes.
Speaker 2:Remember. Mm-hmm. And thankfully it was you helping me through that process of really trusting, coming back to that trust of like, I can have both. Yeah. I can have really great sex intimacy with a partner and someone that is securely attached and safe for me to be with and thank fucking God. Yeah. I did. Because that's the whole, when you approach life, not from a scarcity mindset of, oh, there won't be something out there, but you really trust. What we saw with me over and over was like, okay, we go to the next door and there's something even better and we go to the next door and there's something even better. Like mm-hmm. I really didn't settle, and I, we're not even gonna touch on this in this episode, but it makes me think too, you know, we've been talking about sex intimacy a lot through partnership, but I've even been, you know, there's a book called The Ethical Slut that I've been reading that has been expanding my ideas around. You don't even have to have sex within a partnership. Like yeah, there are all kinds of ways for you to experience intimacy and pleasure when you have a foundation of self-trust and centering yourself and having the skills and the resources to communicate. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I do
Speaker 3:think it helps to have a coach in your ear ly because I think that one of the reasons we had such good experiences when we started dating is that we had regular coaching. Mm-hmm. Because the brain, especially if we think, oh, this needs to go towards marriage, or this person needs to Oh my, yes. Or all of the judgements that go on, all the chatter. So it's a helpful to have a coach. And I also wanted to say that if you're staying with a good guy, but you're not. You really don't want to, but you're staying thinking, well, you know, I don't think it's gonna get better than this. That is so fucking selfish of you, because there are people that would probably be a great match for him that don't cock block him and his future partners like let him go, cut him free. Let him go. Pleasure. Some other women learn some things and it reminds me of, you know, sometimes our kids can't hear what we are saying and it takes somebody else telling them, and then they come back to us and they're like, oh, I heard this brilliant thought mom. And it's like that for lessons that I learn as well. That I wasn't open to learning with other partners. But then as partners come in, slow down or another partner, let's play another partner. What are your kings? Yes. You know, you get to explore with different partners and it's so beautiful to expand your life in this way. And it's okay if the waves of like, even as I'm saying this in the back of my mind is like, oh my gosh, I have nine siblings and my mom who are still alive. I wonder if they're gonna listen to this. And I have my Mormon friends just because I say I've dealt with a lot of my shame. I still have those voices. Oh
Speaker 2:yeah.
Speaker 3:That get to come up. And now they're like clouds in the sky where it's like, oh yeah, I see you. Bye bye. Yes. I don't have to hold onto it and internalize it and swallow it, swallow that poison. I get to just spit it out and, you know, but, you know, sometimes I, I do like to swallow.
Speaker 4:I saw you, I knew where you were going with that one.
Speaker 2:I, so as you were talking about that, I really, what it struck for me was, you know, you saying like, you know, not cock blocking. Right. And it touched me so much because I realized, you know, it's the flip side for me in my ex-husband, you know, in us getting divorced and letting that end in, in a lot of ways. Exactly. He was a good guy. Willing, but. I couldn't do it with him for some reason. I don't even, I can't even tell you now. I couldn't fully define. I could go on and on about trying to figure it out, but the reality was it just wasn't gonna happen. Yeah. And in this partnership with Joe, as you know, Quinn, the level of like, the dynamics for us mm-hmm. The way he just fits me psychologically, emotionally, mentally and physically, um, allowed me, you know, in our relationship we had factors that prevented us from connecting physically. Sexually in the way I'd been doing post-divorce. You know, I'd say the predominant amount of pleasure and sex I had post-divorce was absolutely heteronormative. Like his pleasure is centered. Um, a lot of guys that would talk about how much they cared about my pleasure, but when it really came down to it, like, you give me oral for maybe a minute and then all of a sudden you're up and in me and I just yeah, don't, don't know any better. So
Speaker 5:yeah,
Speaker 2:lots of overpromising talking about how much, uh oh, I love making my partner's orgasm. And then when it really came down to it, it was just like, oh, okay. Well. Cool. I guess. I guess that was it. I guess that was one point and I didn't know and I didn't know any better and so I just learned to, I just accommodated, I got really good Yeah. At liking being fucked. Just really hard and really fast. Yeah.
Speaker 3:cause it's sensational, so
Speaker 2:at least you're feeling
Speaker 3:something. Exactly.
Speaker 2:Like it can kind of, and, and when you say, you know, it would knock me kind of out of my head and I'd be able to like be present in the moment. But, so I started dating Joe and that option's not available. It was not available. And you remember I had a lot of brain drama about this.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah. In,
Speaker 2:in the beginning. I especially because the abusive relationship I'd left the year before that was what had kept me in it was this, you know, aggressive kind of hard, heteronormative sex. That I thought I really liked at the time. Yeah. But what a gift it was. And it was a huge part of it was you coaching me and helping me process. Right. The feelings of like, this is so different. I'm uncomfortable. And the reason I was uncomfortable was because my pleasure was being centered. Yes. And I didn't know how to slow down and drop into my body. Right. I think so much of that same moment for you when that guy was like, let's just stay right here. You know, Joe would be like, let's just stay right here. And I'd be like, no, no, no.
Speaker 4:I
Speaker 3:know,
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 3:Like, what do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? What do
Speaker 2:I do? And thank goodness he just had the grounding in him to not, you know, to, and he was so gentle and so just the way he. Eased me in and knew and knew all the different flavors. Right? Yeah. He understood more of energetic sex. Mm-hmm. More of kinky kind of mental psychological aspects of pleasure and sex. So he started introducing me to all these other ways that lit up my body, and I learned it was like learning a whole bunch of other languages, right? Mm-hmm. At first it felt really awkward'cause it's like, uh, we can't speak English to each other. Well, what are we gonna do then? You know, we can't just do the heteronormative. Like the pleasure is focused on you, and I understand you're turned on because I can read the signals, like the signals were different, everything was different, and oh my God, what a gift that was. Because it forced me. I know I'm putting that in air quotes, just by the nature of things to have to go to a different experience, to have to sit in the discomfort. And thank God I had with him a partner that I felt safe enough there was enough. There was, you know, no water under the, under the bridge. There was that mutual trust. That was the experiences that we'd had together to allow myself to open my body. And now over a year later, like, holy shit, is sex on a different planet for me now?
Speaker 3:Yeah. You didn't even know it was available. No. And you wouldn't know. Unless you had trusted yourself and trusted your journey from that very first time where you decided, I'm going to file, I'm gonna take this step, not knowing what was ahead of you. Absolutely. And letting life live through you. So proud of you. Yeah,
Speaker 2:I know, right Babe, that leads me to my final question for you at the end of this, which is really taking a second to share how much your life has changed as you have centered your desires, your orgasm, your pleasure in sex.
Speaker 3:Uh, it's made it more clear on my goals for my life because. Life gets to be orgasmic. Life gets to be pleasurable. Now I definitely have my self pleasuring time where I center connection with my body, and I love that time. And it's so much more than that because it's not the, it's not just the, that blooming within my body of the orgasm. It's that that blooming happens throughout my day because I have learned to trust myself and that my pleasure is a guide. It's a compass that, you know how sometimes you're having sex and it's like, it's on that edge of pleasure and pain. So I'm not saying that everything in my life is like the, the orgasmic pleasure, but there's this like. That hard edge? Well, aliveness. Aliveness, yes. Alive. Like I'm feeling it like when you're lifting the heavy weights, when I'm putting in the time to accomplish my goals, that also feels very pleasurable to me. And so it's not just all romance and soft touches. Sometimes in my, oh, sometimes it's really rough whipped, a little bit of a spank from life and I'm here for all of it. Like I, I've expanded my, my ability to feel everything.'cause it's not about feeling good, it's about feeling everything. Yes. And when you expand yourself to be able to feel everything, all of life becomes pleasure because all of life is so sensational when we let it be.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what about
Speaker 3:you, Britta?
Speaker 2:Before I share mine, I just wanna, okay. And I wanna check in and say. I think the key to you going in that journey, right? I thought of these two things, was that you, you were able to do that because you got out of the trauma.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right. I, I realized too, as you were sharing it, I was like, and when you talk about that second piece right, of like getting into a personal practice with yourself, that really only started for me when I had my own space Yes. And my own time where I did not have children with me. For me, you know, I know you have your kiddos at home, but you just having a home that is your own, where there is not a partner that you are expected to be sexual with or that is commenting on your body or that is pressuring you or that is angry at you'cause you're not, or I don't think that can be. Um, stated enough how difficult, like I don't want anybody to think. Yeah. And this is totally doable when you're in an environment where you're being re-traumatized and your C-P-T-S-D is flaring up and your emotional flashbacks are around all the time. Mm-hmm. That was a huge foundational piece for both of us, was safety. Yes. Eliminating
Speaker 3:the, the trigger, the person that's triggering a lot of trauma responses. Yes,
Speaker 2:yes. Yeah. Um, for me, you know, what has it done for my life centering my desires and my pleasure, what hasn't it done right? Like, here I am on a podcast like that is the engine for Yeah. Me. Um, it is, it's made me really unfuckwithable, like when you are a well pleasured woman who believes I get to desire whatever the fuck I want.
Speaker 5:Mm-hmm. You
Speaker 2:move through the world differently and that is my favorite thing about it, is I get to live every day of my life with this essence of me that is like, yeah, I fuck yeah. I deserve to exist. Fuck yeah. This is my life. Fuck yeah. I will have what I want. Mm-hmm. I get to feel good. I get to, you know, on the weekends with my partner when my kids aren't here, spend the whole day just giving. It's, it's like I finally get to be an adult.
Speaker 3:Yes. Oh, yes, yes. Yeah. I love that. Yes, because when we keep sex in a box, something that is so, I mean, within Mormonism, they would say it's sacred. It's not secret, but that's why we, I'm not gonna talk about it.
Speaker 4:Oh my God, I know you remember that. Yes, I do. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It doesn't allow us to grow up and we continue to be infantalized within the relationship of the marriage in heteronormative sexual relationships where yes, it's not like our pleasure isn't important, unless you're into that. Like if you're into that, then lean into. You know, not having your pleasure centered, but just know if you're
Speaker 2:really, if you're really hitting hard on the trad wife trends, I wanna offer, this may not be the podcast for you.
Speaker 5:May not be, may not be,
Speaker 2:I lemme say this. What's even funner though? Like you wanna play the trad wife stuff? I can still play the trad wife stuff with Joe anytime I want. It's called role playing. There's a whole section of kink. Yeah. Like that is still available, but in actually adult consensual negotiated ways where you get to, at the end of that role play not be a trad wife anymore. Yes. Versus
Speaker 3:mm-hmm. Those who having to make up and be it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You don't get to just, okay, cut scene's over, we get to go back now. No, you get to experience that day in, day out. Um, yeah. Yeah. And that this, I feel like the whole episode was just to kind of like break through that, that wall, that illusionary wall that I think we as women in our DNA often live with and think is real because it's been passed down from the trauma of our mothers and our grandmothers and our great-grandmothers who did not have the rights or the freedoms or the opportunities to be able to leave and actually survive without a marriage.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And the, the gorgeousness of 2025 here in America at the moment is, that is not the case. And fuck no. Will we be going back?
Speaker 3:We're not going back.
Speaker 2:No. Mm-hmm. No. Oh my God. I adore you. I adore you too. And we adore all of you, our gorgeous listeners. Yes.
Speaker 3:Belief in your strength. You are stronger than you think you are.
Speaker 2:Yes. And you are spicy and little badass and a little klinky. Totally, totally. And we welcome that. This is, this will always be a space where the full expression of ourselves Yes. Is welcome. Um, yeah. I am so, so grateful to now have the community as a space where we actually can hang out all together and talk about these things. So if that's something you've been being called to, we now have Alex. So for those of you that don't know my personal, tell them how they can join and get information. My personal assistant is actually Quinn's oldest daughter. And she is fucking amazing. Um, and we actually have switched our interview process now where she is doing the interviews and I'm in love with it. I'm actually kind of obsessed. She, uh, does the interviews, records them, and then I get to watch them later and from there,
Speaker 3:so explain the interviews for people that don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the interview, when you go to sign up, you
Speaker 3:just click a button and join the community. Yeah. Because you want it to be really a safe container, right.
Speaker 2:Ex. Exactly. And that's one of the things that's, you know, that was the most important when I was creating up the community was. How do we make this a place where we keep it really, really safe? You know, where everybody, because this is vulnerable, authentic stuff. Yeah. To be talking about, you know, you and I, we have the privilege of being divorced so we can just get on a podcast and be like, Hey mother motherfuckers, this is what I'm doing. Yeah. And I really love that. Yep. But for a lot of you, that's not the case. You're still in marriages, you're still navigating those things. So, uh, yeah, we have an application process. There's an NDA and an end user agreement that have to be signed before, but in the application, it's just a 15 minute call with Alex where she walks you through various questions. Some of those look like, you know. How'd you find the community? Why is it the best fit for you? What kind of support are you most needing? What does it mean to be in a community that's got this sacred confidentiality element to it? Like, this is your moment to really get to, you know, convey to me who you are, why you wanna be in this community, and I reserve the right mm-hmm. Which is so beautiful to select who I feel is actually a good fit for it or not. And if you do end up getting to come in, you know, I send over an email and then you're onboarded by Alex. And we actually had, um, a gorgeous new community member join, um, this week over in, I believe she's in France. Yes. Yeah. Yes. She, we actually, she knew a mutual coaching friend of mine and Quinn's from way back when.
Speaker 3:Oh my God.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So really, really magical. Um, getting to have that space and having these, we have these intimacy chats every month and I love them because, you know, we even have like a section now in the community that's called the Bag where we share like our favorite sex toys and because we need, all of us want this education. This is, you know, when, when, uh, the, we came up with that title of the episode, right? The whole, you know, the sex talk you're never supposed to hear. That's what we wanted this to be, and that's what those intimacy chats are. They're a space, yeah, a radical space where women get to be adults and talk about whatever they want.
Speaker 5:Yeah. With
Speaker 2:without feeling like, you know, your dad or your religion or your husband, your parental husband. Yeah. Is over there telling you what you can and can't think.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's a really amazing space. On the, um, on the show notes, I'm gonna have Alex link your podcast from last week,'cause that sounds amazing. Okay. The one, what was it all about again? It was like,
Speaker 3:it was about, um, the Female Orgasm. Yes. I don't remember the, the title. It was something like, get yourself off, get Your Life Back, or something like that.
Speaker 4:Oh my God. Hashtag my new Yeah,
Speaker 3:vitamin O. Get yourself off. Get your life back. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Hell yes.
Speaker 3:Oof. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oof. So I'll attach that in the show notes. Yeah. I loved you. You know, mentioning for those women that are looking for more community, that might be post-divorce, this is an option in the community. We've found that it's just a beautiful space for everybody. And of course you are taking on individual clients as well. Right for,
Speaker 3:for a few more months at least. My, my schedule changed as I head deeper into nursing school. But for now, come get a while spot. What a big come get it. But how do you join the community?'cause don't you have Yes. So a code, something.
Speaker 2:Yes. They can just text, um, stay or go community to three three triple seven. That's the easiest way. It brings you straight to the landing page. And then from there there'll be a link that they can schedule for the interview. So we've made it super quick and easy, which is not what we want your sex to be like. No, we want it to be easy. What? You like it that way? But yeah, exactly. Mix that in. Occasionally with the right partner, you can have every single different, all of it. So good thing. All the parts. All the things. I love you, Quinn. Thank you for this amazing episode today.
Speaker 3:Oh, I love you right back. B. Yeah,
Speaker 2:it was so needed. All right everyone. We'll see you all next week. Bye-bye. Bye.