Sex is Power with Nicolle Hodges

Your sexual energy is your life-force. It's how you show up in the bedroom, boardroom, and everywhere in between. But how do you connect to your sexual essence and power? Today my guest Nicolle Hodges is on the podcast to share just that! We're talking all things sexual freedom, desire, and accessing erotic energy through the power breath work. 

This episode is brought to you by Othership
Get a FREE month of breath work when you sign up at othership.us/intimacy

On this episode we chat:

• Sexual freedom
• Relationship to power
• Connecting to desire
• Shadow & light work
• Interconnected
• Life-force energy
• Submission & Dominance
• Breathwork
• Self trust

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Connect with Nicolle:
@nicolledoublel

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Transcript

0:00

Music. Hello everybody and welcome back to the Bedside Podcast. This week we've got something really special lined up for you. I am partnering with Othership on an amazing episode all around their new intimacy series. So Othership is a breathwork app and an immersive bathhouse experience. So yes, they also have a permanent location, which is a bathhouse, spa, sauna, cold plunges, name it, in tandem with an amazing Breathwork app and they recently released an entirely new intimacy series on the app. So think Breathwork and meditation meets sensuality. And today I've got one of their amazing educators and host of a few of their sessions, Nicole Hodges, on to talk about the series and to dive into the impact of Breathwork and our own intimacy and eroticism. This is a really, really dishy episode to the point where we were like, okay, we have to do a part two with all of the amazing work that Nicole does in the BDSM space. So to give you a little bit of a preface on Othership, their new intimacy series, which is so amazing, has a bunch of different hosts and guides taking you through different breathwork sessions that tap into your sensuality, your eroticism, and just your own sexual energy. And Nicole is the host of three. Sessions so far and we unpack the different sessions that Nicole hosts and really how Breathwork can help us access our own intimate language and connection within. I think a lot of the time we look outside of ourselves, we look to mainstream media to understand what the topics of of sexuality mean for us? And this entire conversation really talks about how it starts within and how we can begin to. Tap into that amazing part that lives within us, that lives within each of us, that is deeply sensual and deeply passionate and deeply connected to one's own desire. As you'll hear on this episode, we dive into Nicole's work around BDSM, the erotic self. She calls herself a sexual freedom philosopher, which is so amazing. You'll kind of hear her own definition of that, and really how we can use these different dichotomies that are in a lot of BDSM teachings to explain the different parts and pieces of ourselves, how they come together, and how we can begin to walk ourselves through our own sexual being, and how we can begin to trust ourselves in our own process of authenticity and finding that. You know, I think, again, A lot of what we hear is like, find your authenticity, tap into your sensuality, and everyone's like, yeah, rally cry, but wait, how the heck do we do that? So this episode touches on exactly that. I also want to mention that Othership is offering bedside listeners a free month to the app to explore all of the sessions. So if you head to the app store, you can just search for Othership, download it, sign up, and we will handle the rest for you. I'm really, really excited for this episode. Please give a warm welcome to Nicole Hodges to the Bedside Podcast. Music. Welcome to the Bedside Podcast. I'm really excited to have you here today. And we actually have a very exciting episode queued up for everybody because this is kind of in collaboration with Othership, which, for those of you who don't know, is an amazing Breathwork app experience and also is a bathhouse in New York City, which is wild. And Nicole, you're gonna have to tell us so much more about it. But I'm really thrilled to have you on because other ship just released an intimacy series, which you were one of the creators spearheading their sessions and so miraculous. And you have such an incredible background in the sexual wellness space in kind of body autonomy and exploring eroticism, which is why like I can't wait. I have a million questions. It was so hard to kind of like succinct what I wanted to specifically get into because you you specialize in so many amazing things. But first off, before I continue rambling, just welcome to the podcast. And I'm so excited to have you here. Thank you. Yeah, it's really good to be here. And I was really excited when other ship wanted to release this intimacy series, and just finding out some of the other people that. Are involved in this other ship is based in Toronto, too, which is actually where I am. They recently opened in New York, but I have enjoyed their whole sauna ice bath experience for a while now, even back when they were just kind of small and starting off and were referred to as inward instead of othership and their breathwork is great like their app if you haven't downloaded it definitely do that but when they said that they were actually doing an intimacy series and focusing on partner and self-intimacy that is when i got really really excited because they knew what they were getting into when they asked me to be part of this i mean i'm pretty explicit with the things that i talk about and bdsm is one of them and for anyone who doesn't know what that overlapping acronym stands for. It's bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism, which to put succinctly is the pleasure that one might get from giving or receiving pain. And so when they asked me to come on board and provide some meditations and then they didn't really say like, these are the parameters. There was so much creative agency and trust that was given to me. Really deepened my appreciation for the existence of othership and the people who are behind it because intimacy isn't a narrow scope for them. They were willing and open to allow it to go into realms that might be a bit darker or for some people, a bit more taboo or controversial. And so all I will say is that there is truly something for everyone on the app. That is a fact. I really love that because, like, let's be real, a lot of brands will have kind of intimacy or pleasure initiatives, and they keep it so surface level. And what I appreciated so much about this series is like, it's like, cut the bullshit, like, let's actually get to the heart of what intimacy means, what it can be what eroticism means, and how it can be expressed and understood. So I really just appreciate that like from the get-go with especially like the sessions that you developed, which we'll get into because I took all of them and I'm kind of keen to share a little bit of my own personal experience with each of them. But before we get into each of those sessions on a granular level, you call yourself a sexual freedom philosopher, can you explain what this means to you? Yeah, absolutely. So, my explorations into the realms of eroticism and BDSM and shadow play all come from this baseline belief that the most powerful thing that you can do is to be most like yourself. And so when we're talking about something like freedom, freedom is the recognition of the ways that we actually repress ourselves. When we recognize the ways that we repress ourselves, we can actually then become free from the subconscious drivers that stop us from getting what we want. A lot of the time when we repress our desires, for instance, I'm speaking in the realm of sexual desire primarily, we repress our desires in order. To stop ourselves from confronting all of the ways that we've contributed to subconsciously ensuring that we don't get what we want because getting what we want is actually scary because it causes us to have to reconcile and contend with all of the things that would have to change in our life for us to be who we truly are. So when I'm talking about sexual freedom and I'm talking about, well, you know, philosophy really is the love of learning, right? So it's like, what do I love learning? I love learning about what sexual freedom means, what power means to people, how we can heal our relationship to power. These are the questions that I seek to ask, knowing that the answer will always change as culture changes and as people evolve, but it's this constant, ever-evolving exploration of what it means to be free. You say something so interesting there, which is really like the shadow of desire, which I think a lot of people don't talk about or acknowledge or maybe recognize within themselves. It's that shame piece for a lot of people. Yeah. So how does really extracting the shadow piece help in following through on our desire? Like, where does that actually come into play? Well, I mean, like Freud and Jung and all of these other influential thinkers in the realm of shadow have spoken. A lot about this fact that if, you know, whatever you don't make conscious, so whatever you don't acknowledge and you repress, will seep out in other ways, essentially. Jung has a really good quota and I won't get it perfectly, but essentially, like, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate, right? Like, this idea that whatever we're unaware of. Whatever we repress, it's not like it disappears. It just shows up in other ways. So it's really interesting when it comes to something like desire. When we repress desire, which is, again, like putting something into the shadows, what we're saying is that we don't want to consciously look at, we don't want to be aware of the things that we actually want. And there's a few reasons for that. And a lot of that has to do with this deep fear that we have of change, this deep fear that we have of chaos, this ingrained belief that somehow. Chaos is problematic. Chaos is destructive, but that destruction is what is necessary for regeneration. Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting too, because I think, I mean, I think people can sense that within themselves, especially if they feel like there's a block around their desire, but they don't have an entry point. They're like, okay, now what? Like, I guess I won't explore X because I'm feeling blocked. I'm feeling a lot of like loaded emotions. So like untangling that can be really challenging. I guess this kind of segues me into your sessions. Because honestly, I feel like that is such a lovely entry point into beginning to entangle them. And I'm actually excited to share some of my own experiences with taking the session because I noticed that on like a micro level with myself too. So let's maybe start from scratch here with everybody who's listening, is new to Othership, hasn't taken your series yet. Take care. What is it that you developed? What are the sessions that you developed? And why did you choose to, kind of use breathwork use this tool as that entry point to, Unpacking larger concepts of desire. So when other ship approached me to create some, meditations for them around partner and self intimacy I, Automatically thought okay. How can I create an an experience for someone that feels erotic, right? Like how can I actually use breath and rhythm and weaving in some storytelling to guide them into a place where, you know, after 12 minutes, for instance, they feel a little bit uncomfortable. Something is roused in them enough where they open their eyes and there's a knot in their stomach or a fluttering in their heart or they're kind of like, oh shit, there's something here that I'm not looking at or when she asked me to growl or she asked me to picture claws coming out of the, you know, my, my fingers, like I didn't like that because I don't want to be that person or I don't, I've never done that before or I'm not the type of person who does that or I don't like to make noise or this is embarrassing or trying to pinpoint a little bit about where that shame comes from when you're asked to connect to a darker aspect of yourself that might have gone unattended to. Dormant. Yes, exactly. And so all of that comes from looking at the things in our lives that we deem as potentially chaotic or dangerous or destructive, because again, desire is inherently destructive. Desire doesn't care that you want things in your life to stay the same. Desire doesn't care what you want to want or what you want to not want. Desire will ruin your life, and I put this in quotes, but what I really mean is like desire is what orients us towards becoming by leaving what already is. And so my question with these meditations when I thought about what eroticism is, eroticism is almost that safe space before our desire comes into focus. So before we actually know what exactly it is that we're going after or what we want, eroticism is this kind of like Almost middle ground is liminal space this floating place that we can spend a moment we can ask ourselves like okay, how does this actually feel. In my body. Before action needs to be taken, desire is action-oriented. It wants something. It wants you to do something. Eroticism is actually in the non-action. It's the not doing. It's just the feeling place, that floating space. And so with this eco-erotic visualization that I did, which is all around the myth of Persephone, and it's kind of like going down into the earth and finding yourself there amongst the soil and the rot and the decay, and I talk about the beauty. Of the cycles of nature, and then you come back up, right? That's trying to at least get you in touch with the cycles of death and regeneration and how something in you needs to die in order to grow, and this is how Earth works, and that you are cradled and loved by the Earth and you are part of the earth, therefore you are inherently tied to these cycles and that can be erotic. And then another meditation that I did was submitting to self. So it was actually asking you to picture a dominant self within you. Something that I like to talk about is intuition and I see intuition as your future self whispering back to you. So what I wanted in this meditation with this dominant and submissive self and kind of recognizing these polarities within you was. You go inward and find the being within you that is wise. Be your own guide. And so that's what that one was. And if you, in this visualization, this meditation, you're beneath yourself, looking up at yourself, and there might be some discomfort there. Because if you don't responsibility for your life. That you are not going to like the feeling of submitting to yourself, because you have to recognize that everything that you have and everything that you are is a choice that you are making. And then the last one, this dark erotic exploration that I did, you know, is the most obviously dark one, not most obvious kind of devious one. You know, we have like thunder rolling in the background, which I really like in this feeling of heavy rain. But that one as well is about going into the darkness within you and not being afraid of it, but asking like what lives and grows and blooms in the dark corners of our psyche that we tend to ignore because acknowledging that darkness sometimes feels scary for the things that we actually desire, the things that we actually want and how animalistic we can truly be. Oh my god, I have so many thoughts off of this. First off, the way I almost see it is eroticism is that feeling you tap into which then lets you get into what feels more primal. Desire feels primal. It's not a choice like you were saying. It's that action and instinct you have to jump at something. And, you know, I think I want to get a deeper understanding of... Because this was my experience in the sessions, and I would love for you to kind of elaborate on this, but I remember when I was specifically taking the submit to self session, and at first, I was like, wow, this is actually really uncomfortable to place myself in a small position, looking up to like, quote unquote, a bigger version of myself, right? And then I was like, wait, I'm actually not scared. Like, this is my train of thought. I was like, wait, I'm actually not scared of this power, because I was able to realize like that was my higher self. Like I tapped into that larger knowing of the version of myself that's always guiding me, pulling me in the right direction, telling me to trust. And while I was meditating, I was like, oh yeah, of course, we always go back to the idea that sexual energy is life force energy. Like this isn't a sexual situation that I'm per se playing out in this meditation. Like I am playing out a life force energy. And I would love for you to speak to this more because I think a lot of people might, not a lot of people, but some people might be listening and thinking, well, why do I need to explore this dark version of self like to play out my desires and maybe they're only thinking about their sex life, but it does apply to their sex life, but I'd love to hear more about this life force energy. So life force energy and sexual energy are quite, are intrinsic and interchangeable and can be looked at from so many different perspectives. But really, if I were to distill it down into its simplest form, it is creation energy. Sexual energy is creation energy. When we repress our desires, or we try to—and I've done this, this is my earliest work, and everything that I've created has been because I wish I had had access to it sooner in my life. When you try to, let's say, lobotomize an aspect of yourself like your sexuality, when you try to put something in a box as it pertains to your sexual expression, when you try to compartmentalize so much that you say, you know, I'm not a sexual being because it doesn't make sense for me to tap into that at all times. I get that. Everything has a time and a place. And I'm not saying that being connected to your sexual energy means that you're behaving in a way that you would deem inappropriate in a setting with your family or in an office environment. Like there's obviously a place and a time, but to pretend that it's almost like a faucet that we can turn on and off, trips us of the truth of it, which is that when we're connected to our sexual energy, when we accept ourselves for who we are and what we want. That changes the way that we fundamentally move through the world. Yes. So if our sexual energy is looked at as creative energy, then it is a potent wellspring. And it doesn't mean that it's always expressed sexually, but how it is expressed is in how much we are like ourselves. And if power is how much you are like yourself, then those who are most powerful are most connected to their sexual energy. This is so brilliant. I've never heard anyone kind of like to sync it up like this, but I am such a firm believer in this concept. And I'm so happy that you even mentioned like, it's not something that you just get to choose to turn on or off. And I think a lot of people live life that way. They're like, okay, I'm going to turn this on. Okay, I'm gonna let this go dormant for a while", and I think they don't realize how, when they are doing that, when they are playing switch on, switch off, it's literally cutting off how they're showing up in the world in all different ways. And it's doing you a disservice, right? Like, you're the one who's sitting there half living, and you'll know it. You'll know it, because it's a freaking feeling. You're like, I'm sitting here and my cup is like got a couple drips in it, you know, and I think. What's so amazing is like also taking the awareness and I think it starts there, but then also tapping in, exploring what it means to just touch and go, right? Like I don't think with these sessions you're asking people to jump full throttle from something that they're not connected with to like being like this super connected person to their desire, but I really like these touch in and touch out points. I would love to hear you explain more cause I loved the like submit to yourself. Like that just was such a good session, particularly for me. Can you explain that concept of having a sub and dom within each of us? Yeah, absolutely. So in the exploration of BDSM, which began about five years ago for me, one of the guiding questions was, how can dominance and submission actually help us heal our relationship to power. So we tend to look at power as the necessary subjugation of other in order for there to be some sort of hierarchy established that then creates a. Power dynamic. And when we look at power that way, we want to tear it down. A lot of the the conversations that we're having in mainstream culture right now, especially around like the buzz word of patriarchy, right? Is this is this recognition of the systems that we operate within? But if we fundamentally become suspicious of power, then we will come to hate power, we will come to fear power, and then we will not recognize it within ourselves as the potentiality for change. So when we look at dominance and submission, what we're doing is we are willingly and consensually hyperbolizing and playing with power at its most extreme, where from the outside, it looks like someone is in a dominant position, someone is in a submissive position. Therefore, there is a power imbalance, but what we're actually doing is we're subverting that power imbalance. We're playing with it by blowing it up, making it extreme only because. It is the exact opposite of that. The only reason why power dynamics in dominance and submission works is because it's a mutual exchange of energy that is replenishing for both people involved. So when you go inward in this meditation and submitting to self and you recognize that the, dominant version of you is still you looking out for the submissive version of you, then you start to see that these power dynamics can actually be incredibly healing and that the only way that they work is if it's a mutual exchange of energy. The willingness for you as the submissive to submit, to recognize the power that you do have and willingly choose to surrender to the dominant, which is also you, which has said, trust me to guide you. I see you and I can guide you. And only in that decision from the submissive standpoint and the dominant standpoint to see. Yourself in the other and to want the best for the other by either submitting or surrendering or guiding and leading, does it work? How do you feel like it plays out in a larger context, like within ourselves? Maybe give an example. I kind of want to see this come to life. Okay. So the best way that I can look at it is kind of what I alluded to earlier, which is, let's imagine that your intuition is your future self whispering back to you. We tend to think of of time. As this line that we're walking but what if time and i'm gonna get a little abstract here was actually an upward spiral and so your dominant self is just further along upward on the spiral of time of your very own life what you're submitting to what you're looking up at. Is your future self above you further along your own timeline whispering back to you. Trust me keep going or trust me that feeling that you have like go for it let go of doubt let go of this hesitancy you have like it's beyond a gut feeling your intuition. In doesn't always deliver to you the thing that makes the most sense. It feels like it's sometimes beyond rational thought. Sometimes it feels so abstract that you're like, how is this even the message that's coming through right now? Yeah, it is. And if you can believe that your dominant self, that the leader within you, that the wise guide within you is just you further along, further upward, looking down at you, reaching down, and saying, come with me, then you'll start to trust yourself more. You'll start to allow yourself to be guided by your intuition. I love that so much. That is also. It's like I've done so many different healing modalities in this context, less like explicitly sub-Dham, but in the same context of looking to that further timeline. And it's so freeing, right? Where does, okay, so we've kind of explained where maybe the Dham might play in a meditation like this. And I feel like it was very, the meditation itself was very focused on that, that, which I think honestly is probably the piece that a lot of people fear, I suppose, that might not be or are intimidated by or are unfamiliar with. But where does like on the reverse, like where does tapping into this more like sub piece come to? Do you think that's where people are mostly living in their consciousness? Are they in the sub? Or would you say that's like a whole different category? Hmm, well, I think there's a couple of things there. One of the first things that comes to mind is, and we talk about this a lot when we're kind of addressing like a psychedelic experience, right? It's all about surrendering to the medicine. Surrender, surrender, surrender, surrender, surrender. The hangup that most people have around surrendering is that surrendering is a lack of control. And surrender is opening yourself up to chaos, which is opening yourself up to change, which means that you have the potential to be caught off guard by the truth of your own life. And that is scary for people because we don't like to feel like we don't know what's coming next. And so when you're in this meditation and you're exploring yourself from perhaps this submissive standpoint where you're submitting to yourself, what you're essentially saying is. I'm open to be proven wrong about what it was that I thought I wanted or where I was going or what was best for me. But you're doing that in service of yourself to yourself. That makes a lot of sense. And I have to say, too, like on your note of the sessions feeling like they are bringing up maybe like something uncomfortable in you or like making you like feel a flutter of something. I do agree with that, but I also have to say I felt so safe in the container of that meditation. It was so soothing actually. So I don't want people to feel like when they're going into this that it's like, oh my god, we're gonna face you with these like deep blocks and shadows. It's an opportunity to peer into things a little bit more deeply. So I like just a compliment to you, Nicole, like the sessions were phenomenal. And they were just done in such a beautiful, mindful capacity. I'd love to get a deeper understanding of, honestly, like where, where does breath work come into and meditation like come into this healing journey of facing our desire and like. Owning our desire. How is that tool actually playing out? There's a Greek word I really love called ataraxia, and essentially what it means is. Tranquility. The best way that I have thought of this is that the calmest place to be is in the center of the storm. You think of a tornado almost, and you think that all of these things can be swirling and changing around you, but if you're steady in the center of the storm, you can hold yourself there and you can see all of the movement. You can be with all of the movement without getting swept up in it. It's terrifying for us to realize how much we are not in control and how everything around us is constantly changing and that the only change or the only constant is change. So our breath is really the only way that we can stay steady, in the midst of all of this constant change. It is our constant companion. It is what we have from the moment we arrive, and it's the last thing that we'll say goodbye to on our way out. And it's funny that we just, we really overlook that. And that's fine. It would be excruciating if we had to focus on our breath every second of the day. But it's in how mundane it is that also makes it so extraordinary. And so when you are able to slow down enough and to be enamored and. In love with the sensation of breath coming in and out of your body, because we are so accustomed to it because we can overlook it so much. It actually allows us to connect with how amazing it is to exist at all. What I love about these sessions, what I love about the way that Othership has set them up is it uses breath, the app uses breath, it uses rhythm, and then it uses voice. And sometimes you're asked to participate in voice as well, right? Sometimes you're asked to make an audible sound or to growl or whatever it is. It's really connecting to your body, as a vessel moving through the world. And that is so simple. And yet at the same time, so easy to overlook when we get caught up in the swirling mass of constant change. Just to have an opportunity to come back. To center into the eye of the storm can give us so much clarity and so much perspective. And it's because it's so simple that it is also extraordinary. Yeah, I really like that. I think these concepts to tap into can be made really complex. And I actually think the point of this conversation is that it's not. That we need to to strip back all of the fluff, and like you said, the noise and the chaos of it, and really get back to the center, get back to our beingness, and recognize it as who we are, and trust it to be that reference point. I think a lot of what we do as a culture, and it's no one's fault we've been led this way, is to seek outside of ourselves for a lot of these things. And this is just like a returning home to what that is. And I know like everybody's always throwing around these ideas of like, find your authenticity, like tap into what is authentically you. And I think especially a lot of like younger generations are like really struggle with that, right? Cause like their whole way of living is so outwardly facing, especially as we head more into the digital world and into being so hyper-digital. There's so much complexity there and so many variables, but I just love how this strips it back to basics. Well, especially when we're talking about sexuality, it's if you've spent any period of of your life, feeling unsafe in your body. Or trying to escape your body into your mind, breath is going to feel intimidating because getting into your body is going to feel uncomfortable. And so through these, what I, would say are very approachable entry points to use your words, they really do allow you in your own space on your own time, right, surrounded by the things that you're familiar with, to go inward and to connect to something as simple and as extraordinary as breath as a pathway for you to get a better sense of where you're at in your relationship to your body in general. I love that. I mean, it's so profound. And like you said, it's as simple as it is intricate. And I think that's where I get excited by it, because I think that's where the play comes in, and that's where the exploration. And I think it's a really exciting opportunity to blossom in that space. Because I mean, I know we've been speaking a lot about Shadow, but as you said. I kind of relate it to the Brene Brown quote of vulnerability. The deeper you go into shadow, the more you're going to experience light. And I see that so hand in hand. I've experienced it hand in hand. It makes your spectrum of living so much richer. And something that I say as it pertains to BDSM and dominance and submission in particular is that the height of my dominance is matched to the depth of my submission. So it's that same dichotomy of darkness and light, right? My ability and comfort and the responsibility I'm willing to take for myself as the leader of my own life is matched with how much I'm able to receive of life's great Yeah, that's it. That's really it. Oh my gosh. This is just so juicy. I am really excited for everybody listening to have the opportunity to explore not only your work a little bit more deeply. Thank you so much for touching on this. I feel like I could spend so much more time just like, I'm like, we only got to the surface of things, like, let's get into it. But I'm excited for everybody to potentially take these sessions and really. Experience it for themselves. And like, I want this for everybody, right? Like, I think this is what, like, I think part of our journey here is part of our sexual evolution, part of our are tapping into our desire, right? We were placed here at a certain point in time to... Live out our desires. And I really do believe everybody was given this unique genetic code of desire. And we're here to undo that. That's the only thing that I really believe that we are placed on this planet to do, to unlock that great code and what an amazing journey we're set on. So I hope people are just excited to either get started or just keep continuing on. Well, I'm glad you took the sessions and that you got something from them. It's really good to hear this. You're my first piece of feedback live. So that was really nice to experience. Yeah, no, they were great. It was very, I think the best way I can describe it is like it felt it was really cool. The way it was, it was like a guided meditation. And I like how earlier you said like there was there's rhythm to it, because it really feels like you're brought into kind of this trance, this beat, this like kind of subtle dance music energy. And it's a really lovely experience. It helped me to drop in really well. So yeah, I'm excited. I hope that, you know, we want to share with people to go to othership.us backslash intimacy. So go check out this series and othership is actually offering all the listeners to Bedside a free month subscription to the app. So guys, you've nothing, you've got nothing to wait on. Just go for it. Absolutely nothing to lose by doing it. Nicole will have to like have you back on to really get into BDSM because like you just totally piqued my interest. I know you're writing a book. Can you share a little bit more about that? Yeah, sure. So writing a book is excruciating. I don't recommend it, but it's a book about it's essentially introducing BDSM as a healing modality. So looking at the ways that that pain and pleasure can help us come to accept and love ourselves and step into our fullness and our power, how something like bondage can actually be an amazing tool for liberation and how this dance and this energetic exchange of dominance and submission can help us heal our relationship to power. I love this. When is it coming out? Are you in the depths of writing this? I am so in the depths. I am at the bottom of a hole looking upwards and all I see of the light is a pinprick a a thousand miles above me, and I am crawling my way out. That is so funny. So I do not know my goal is a year from now, but what I am going to do is, and I'll let you know this so that you can let your listeners know if they want to keep up to date, but I'm going to start giving people access to the interviews that I actually do with experts along the way. I'll probably interview about 50 people for the book. And so I want to give people kind of this like front row seat to this information because obviously, you know, as a journalist, like I understand how much gets cut out. And there's so much information and speaking with these experts, neuroscientists and psychologists and sexologists and just guides across the spectrum of healing that I want people to be able to have access to everything, even if I can't actually get everything into the book. So yeah, I'll definitely let you know about that. Yeah, people can can sign up to kind of sit in on my interviews. I love that. Oh, Oh my God, so exciting. Well, we'll have to have you back when, tentative when that will be, tentative live date. But yeah, I'm just so happy we were able to record today and I'm really just happy that this work exists because we need more spaces to explore our eroticism. And our sexual energy. So I'm loving this and yeah, guys, anyone listening, definitely go check out Othership and the entire intimacy series. Like we said, you have a whole month for free. So, so exciting. Anyways, thank you, Nicole, for joining me. And yeah, can't wait to have you back at some point. Thank you. Bye everybody. Music. I hope you love this episode as much as we did making it. If you have any feedback, questions, or suggestions for future episodes, or if you just want to chat, don't hesitate to reach out to us at the bedside on Instagram and thebedside.co online. You can also find us at by the bedside on TikTok. To stay updated on our latest episodes, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your preferred platform. And if you found this episode valuable, I would so greatly appreciate if you could leave us a rating, a review, text it to a friend, share it to your Instagram stories. Let's get this message out there loud and clear. Until next time, thank you so much for tuning in and I'll see you in the next one. Music.