Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Nicole. On today's episode, we have professional dominatrix and sexual fantasy coach, Bye. Artemisia Divine, join us for a conversation about the erotic psyche. Together we talk about the power of our stories. Hello, dear listener, and welcome back to Modern Anarchy. I am so happy that you are tuning in for another episode. Ugh, fantasies. This conversation and Fantasies the Erotic is at the heart of everything that I am so interested in and excited to explore through my research with you in this space.
So, you know if you have been tuning in the last couple episodes, I've talked about the importance of narrative therapy, right? The ways that we go about through our world creating stories and narratives of who we are and And what our experience is. And so it makes so much sense that today's conversation would be around the stories of eroticism.
What are the stories that impact us and get us excited? And which ones don't have that charge? I think it's important here to also have a conversation about intersectionality and systems of oppression. It is impossible, whether we're talking about erotic stories, non erotic stories, to live in this world and not be impacted by systems of oppression.
So any story that we have in our life, erotic fantasies, the day to day meaning of our world, is going to be impacted by The systems we live under. There is no escaping that, and it's something that I think we all have to be critical about in unpacking why is certain kind of sex erotic and others seen as maybe gross or wrong?
Why is it that certain bodies are attractive, certain acts, but others aren't, right? We have to have that conversation about the ways that the systems of oppression are impacting our brain, both erotically, non erotically, and how that directly impacts our fantasies. And, of course, whether we call living under systems of oppression trauma or not, That's a big question.
You know, one I clearly started to talk a little bit about with my episode last week with Danielle, and it's something I'll continue to explore, right? Are we muddying the water when we call living under these systems trauma in a way that just credits the lived experience of what that word can mean? Or maybe we don't even want to use the word trauma, right?
Maybe we don't want to use the master's tool of the psychology field to describe it that way, but I think it's important to remember that our cultural context shapes directly our fantasies and all of the stories that we tell about our lives. Right? In the 1800s, women's bodies were so sexualized and forced to be hidden in the cultural context of that time that when you would see a woman's ankle, It would be so erotic, and I just think it's funny.
I don't know about you, dear listener, but when I see an ankle, I am not turned on by it, and that is because I'm living in 2024, right, where the cultural context of that body part is very different, and so I am a I'm deeply curious, right, if we live in such a shame laden society, what would our eroticism look like in a world without shame?
What would be the things that turn us on? I think getting outside of that trauma or systems of oppression framework can also be helpful, right? We all thrive in connection. We all vary in what that connection looks like, how much, where, and all those pieces, but we thrive in connection, right? And so it makes sense in our eroticism and our fantasies that we would want to play with connection.
Do you want to feel super close to your partner so much so that you maybe lose your sense of self and melt into their commands, right? Do you want to feel far? Do you want to watch your partner with someone else and feel that stretch of the connection while of course still maintaining it, but that stretch and the pull and the dynamics of that, there are so many different ways to play with connection that gets our erotic psyche going.
And also, we live in an existential world of meaning making, right? We have a stimulus, we make meaning of it, and we turn it into our story. And so, when we think about this world of existential givens, one of our existential givens that we're always dealing with is A lack of control. This earth that you and I are both on is spinning in a cosmos that we don't know the end of.
I don't know how that makes you feel about control, but man, it makes me feel like I have none in some ways, right? Of course it's a yes and, right? But we live in a world where we seemingly have so much control, but also don't at the same time. And so of course in our erotic fantasies, what a fun thing to play with.
Do I want to hand over my control to you or do I want to take over control of you? Right? So many narratives we can spin in that. Right? I, that space is truly endless. The narratives and the creativity and the stories. It truly is endless. And I hope you can feel the excitement that comes over my body when I just think about the world of this blank canvas that you can paint with your partners, with yourself, and really And getting curious about what it is that brings you that eroticism.
And during this conversation with our guest today, I definitely poked at the use of the word ego. Now I had just gotten out of a meeting prior to this recording where I was with one of my colleagues at my school and they were conceptualizing a client and their whole conceptualization Oh, well, their super ego and their ego are actually in conflict and yada, yada, yada.
And I was just scratching my head like, wow, like we still talk about this like it's some sort of internal, you know, puppet that is controlling the scene rather than the. Wow, yeah, we are shaped by systems of oppression that tell us what is okay and what is not okay within our cultural context that create relational paradigms of how we show up and relational patterns, right?
It's just mind boggling to me that we still go back to that. id, superego, and all of that sort of context. And it sounds like that's not at all what today's guest was talking about, but it was hard for me to hear that word given the critiques that feminist psychology has on that word specifically. And so I was thinking about other words that might even be helpful when we're thinking about enjoying playing with connection and control.
In my work with psychedelics, we often work from an internal family's system and they talk about the manager, right? That part of our psyche that is always trying to control, make sure everything is going exactly right. Maybe another word for that would also be our default mode network way of thinking, right?
But in these moments of connection and eroticism, we're talking about stepping into a flow state. And in that flow state, whether you're, you know, taking control of another, letting go of control to another, we are allowing our managers quiet for just a moment and to step into that flow state of connection, of allowing your pleasure and your fantasies to unfold.
In play, and I am just so delighted to be able to explore and dedicate my career to studying sex, relationships, pleasure, and our liberation from systems of oppression, and I'm so excited to see collectively that we're expanding possibilities of what is erotic, what is sexual, and the ways that we can all play with our bodies and intimacy in such divine, Powerful, transcendent ways.
Thinking about the culture of narratives, impurity culture. I was dreaming of marrying, making love with a pastor. Oof, you know, a man of God, someone who was really dedicated to the path. And I will say, at that time in my life, there were no fantasies about using a strap on to bring someone to unparalleled levels of ecstasy.
No fantasies of multiple people and the ways that having that abundance of love and energy could take me to transcendental experiences I would have never imagined. at that time in my life because of the culture of what was okay and what wasn't. And the reality of those dreams is even better than I could have imagined.
And it has opened up even more space. To keep dreaming, to get even more creative about what is possible with myself, with the people that I love. And I hope as I vulnerably explore these pieces in my life and my work and my research that you too, dear listener, find more space to explore the things that excite your Wild psyche.
This is certainly not the end of this conversation of fantasies, eroticism. I have had so many episodes that I've recorded with you that are going to be released this year talking about these topics, and it is my life's work, and I am excited to be here with you in this space. Alright, let's tune in to today's episode.
So then the first question I like to ask each guest is, how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?
Artemisia de Vine: How would I introduce myself? Well, I'm a former sex worker and professional dominatrix, a recovered, recovered or recovering, recovered purity culture person who was brought up in extremist breakaway Seventh day Adventism.
Quite cult like, really. Oh, it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, this particular version had the whole, the whole gamut of, um, being locked away from the rest of the world as well. So there's that, but I'm also now a sexual fantasy coach. I am somebody who specializes in the erotic psyche and how it works. And I have a brand new theory about that.
Therapists are eating up. In fact, two thirds of my clients are therapists and other, other sexuality professionals. So I love to tell you all about that as well. That's probably the most interesting points that you'd want to know about me at this point.
Nicole: And I like to follow the lead of you. Is there anywhere you want to start out of those?
Artemisia de Vine: Well, actually I'd love to know about you because you've had this purity culture as well. I'd love to know how your purity culture influenced what you thought a sexual fantasy is.
Nicole: It ruined everything, I would say. In a lot of ways, right? I think that, um, sexual fantasies are wrong. Right. From my paradigm of thought, it was that if you think about murdering, if you hate someone in your heart, you've already committed murder in the eyes of the Lord.
Right. So like any sort of fantasy about sex was bad because I wasn't allowed to do that before I was married. And then I think even, you know, I broke away before getting into a marriage or having any sort of paradigm like that. But within that framework, if I ever did fantasize, it was purely about obviously very.
penis, vanilla, heterosexual sex, and I had no other capacities despite being a queer person, despite, you know, being kinky, despite doing non monogamy, like, you know, there just was no capacity to dream of anything like that.
Artemisia de Vine: Yeah, your words are just reminding me. That's right. There was thought police inside our heads.
Oh my goodness.
Nicole: Very Michael Foucault. I'm here for it. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I, I actually released an episode on my birthday going into the ways that like that paradigm of thought made it so difficult to step out of anything else. Like the first time I had queer sex, I felt so much shame, right? The first time I had kinky play, it was shameful.
The first time that I had multiple partners, it was shameful. Like all this unlearning that I had to do my fantasies to actually have the creative space to think.
Artemisia de Vine: It's interesting that you didn't even allow yourself to be aware of, of your sexual fantasies until later, or always the other way around.
Nicole: Well, you know what? It might actually be part of this too. Actually, I should say is the, uh, I have aphantasia. I figured we'd get into this at some point in our conversation.
I have aphantasia, so I can't visualize anything in my mind's eye at all. So if I close my eyes and try to, like, meditate on a memory or an experience It's just completely black. So I do think that that plays into a lack of erotic fantasies, or at least that's what I've heard within the community of other people with aphantasia is feeling that same disconnect.
Artemisia de Vine: Yeah, I get, you're not the first person who's come to me with that particular thing. And actually, I'd be curious if this is true for you, it was true for them about. A knowingness rather than a visualization or a clear memory, still drawing on something that you are aware of, your unknowingness of wanting to feel this way or that you did feel this way with that person or a knowingness that this power dynamic is exciting.
Nicole: Absolutely. Absolutely. I knew that being worshiped would bring something or my partner and one of my partners and I would like get really creative in conversation and talk about stuff. And even though I couldn't see it per se, I definitely was, you know, felt the erotic charge with it. It's the same way I'd read any sort of book, right?
Like I'd see the words and connect to the knowing of that experience, even though I couldn't visualize it, you know, I got a degree in English literature. And so that didn't stop me for all of those years. You know what I mean?
Artemisia de Vine: Yeah. Okay. So you still love stories. Fantastic. Yes. We have a lot to talk about.
Nicole: I'm excited. And yeah, you said that your fantasies were the opposite for you. Yeah. Tell me more about that.
Artemisia de Vine: Yeah. Um, I remember my first early sexual fantasies in kindergarten. Wow. And most people do actually start having some sort of erotic awareness from that age. Of course, children are not ready for adult sexual relationships.
Uh, and we don't even understand sex in the same way. We don't even understand our sexual fantasies in the same way. But I knew that I had a crush on that boy in my kindergarten class and his older brother who was six years older. And I was going to have both of them.
Nicole: Yes. Love it. You knew.
Artemisia de Vine: And as a five year old girl, I was already fantasizing about being tied up by both of them.
Spread eagled. On a cross no less. Wow. Which I had never encountered. Like an ex in Andrew's cross, which is a, an X not a T. Mm-Hmm. . Right. Um, which later on I found out there're in Dungeons everywhere, but I didn't know that as a kid. I had no, you know, in a Christian culture. Right. I had no idea. And yet there it was.
I was fantasizing about that and I was fantasizing about how. Embarrassing it was and how exciting that was. And, um, already from that age. And can you imagine. And initially, I didn't even know that there was something wrong with thinking about that. I didn't, even though I was brought up in a Christian culture, I did have an instinct that I shouldn't tell anyone.
Sure. I should keep it to myself. But it was only later that I learned to have shame about it. When, uh, yeah, because I don't know, there's something about my upbringing that children weren't taken any notice of by adults and we just ran around free. It was later as you started to become, you know, have breasts and things that they went, right, we must control you.
You cannot even breathe without permission.
Nicole: Right, right, right.
Artemisia de Vine: And I learned to have shame about this. And so I started to think. And then I also started to have experiences, real life experiences where people were non consensually ogling my breasts, which, you know, by the way, for people who cannot see me, we can't anyway, cause I've cut the zoom off here.
The giant, all right, from the age of 12, I had these giant orbs bobbing in the space between me and whoever I was talking to. And everybody has a reaction to that. Everybody. Sure. Yeah. So I started getting all of these non consensual. Uh, responses. Some of it was just women completely cutting me out of their world because my very existence was a threat to them.
I was just perceived and objectified as a sexual being without even doing anything. Yeah. Just existing. And. A threat to their relationships, I guess. And men hanging out car windows, wolf whistling and saying really obscene things and, you know, people trying to hit on me in ways that were completely not considering me as a human being at all.
And I started to go, wow, I hate being treated like this. How the hell? How the hell am I turned on by it in my fantasies? Why do I like being objectified and the humiliation of embarrassment and losing control and having someone have power over me in my fantasies? When in real life, this is actually traumatizing.
What's going on here? How do I even make sense of that? So then I'm beginning to suppress my sexual fantasies, uh, and think that they must be You know, the angels are watching and of course they are
Nicole: God's watching every night
Artemisia de Vine: and became really guilty about it. And every now and again, I just get such sexual tension that I had to release it and then I do it in this sneaky way that I, and then as soon as I'd have an orgasm, I'd feel completely shamed.
Shut my, my sexuality down and not think about what I'd thought about in order to get off at all. And this relationship, like, how the hell do I make sense of this thing that is so exciting to me sexually, but is treating me. The exact opposite of how I want to be treated in real life. Mm hmm. How do I even make sense of that?
Yeah. So that began my lifelong quest to work out what the hell sexual fantasies are.
Nicole: Very exciting start point for this conversation. So what's the one word answer? The one word answer. I know, right? It's a whole book, I'm sure.
Artemisia de Vine: So what are sexual fantasies? Yeah. What did I conclude in the end? Yeah. I concluded that they are stories.
They are the exact story that your own psyche made up, the exact story that your ego in particular needs to hear in order to let its defensive guards down so that you can open up to the vulnerability of pleasure, connection, and sometimes even expanded states of consciousness. That's the end of the book, so how I got there is a whole different thing.
Nicole: Totally. That's the abstract. Now we're going to get into the long paper, so tell, yeah, tell me more how you got into this.
Artemisia de Vine: Well, as part of my Christian upbringing, we had everything about the body was evil. Everything was wrong. We weren't allowed to even have herbs in our food in case it excited our senses too much.
We couldn't have, uh, drums in the music in case we got too excited, you know, anything that would let us go into that flow state was evil. Wow. Right? So anything that would go through our senses and into this play of flow. The devil could get in if you went into that. So, you know, you have to stay locked in your intellect to keep safe, right?
Into pedantic legalism. And it's, uh, I rebelled as a teenager from that and went and hung out with who I was told was the devil, which were Pentecostal Christians. Of course. And they were having ecstatic experiences and they were singing songs of praise, which is a way of opening your heart. Right. So making your heart feel big and glowy in your body.
And they were going into states of surrender to something bigger than themselves. Power dynamic.
Nicole: Oh yeah. Kinky Christianity is definitely a thing.
Artemisia de Vine: And they were having these experiences where they were becoming. Possessed by the spirit and having full body shakes and just ecstatic, open shift of consciousness that, that affected them physically, emotionally, psychologically, taking them somewhere, which made them feel like they were having direct contact with God.
And then they would come back from these experiences and go, wow, that experience was so real. Because I've had it in this context, the realness of the experience must be proof that the religion is true too. A, um, confirmation bias would happen. Cycle, cycle, cycle. So that when I first encountered it, I'm like, Whoa, this is, well, this must be the Holy Spirit then.
Then later on. I rebelled against Christianity in my early 20s. And what do you do when you're rebelling? You do the exact thing you told you're not supposed to do. So I went and hung out with witches. I love this. This is getting juicy. Yes. Yes. And then suddenly going to, um, along to a coven and to a full moon ritual.
These people are having the same effect. They know how to get there too. Like, hang on, what, what's happening here? And they're, and they're using their same thing. Look, this experience, ecstatic experience is showing that our framework of the world is right. Another confirmation bias. But I did learn a lot of things about how to create rituals in that.
Then we moved into, I moved into, Oh, uh, later on, I met Tantra people learning all about Kundalini and I'm like, okay, you're doing the exact same thing. Oh my God. Then I did, uh, studied anthropology and I looked at all of these different cultures who do trance work and get into ecstatic states. I'm like, okay, this phenomenon is a thing.
Um, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I forgot another important one. Then I also discovered, you know, in my rebellion, uh, encountered psychedelics as well and started having lovely, um, ego dissolution experiences and connection with what the world is like, what yourself is like when your ego is out of the way, like, hang on, this is the same bloody thing.
Yeah. Hang on. These are all the same thing, all of them. And then, uh, when I started doing sex work, first of all, I did sex work and then I became a dominatrix and learned how to do the kinky things. But initially when I started doing sex work, I just wanted money for an operation. I just wanted 20 grand really, really quickly.
And I just wasn't thinking about. anything wholly. I wasn't trying to make it wholly. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't, hadn't met any other sex workers at that stage. So a friend and I put an ad in the country town newspaper and went and got a really dodgy hotel motel because of the laws at the time we had to go to their houses and I was driving my little panel van around back when you had paper maps, not a GPS, like trying to find things.
In the middle of a wheat field, where the hell's this farmer? Oh my God.
And then I would, you know, newspaper guys are not, they're already calling you in an altered state of horniness. They're not thinking about you as a human being. They're thinking about how you can fulfill their immediate need, right? Yeah. And they're thinking in terms, uh, so they weren't asking respectful questions.
They're asking things like, I'll tell you one of the worst ones just because you know the worst ones are always fun, aren't they? Give them. It's like, what do you look like? How much? Do you take it up the shitter?
Wow. And so I'm like, I could tell this guy to stop being a crass dick, or I could go get some money and who cares what he thinks. All right. And so I went and I got in my little panel van and found his house and then turned up and then, you know, it's actually a really neat farmer's house and there's lavenders in pots on the door, doorway, and actually there's floral curtains and I'm like.
Huh? What's going on? And then a dog's barking and he opens the door and he looks at me and suddenly there's a real human in front of him. And now he's like, Oh. Oh, his manner changed completely because a real human is entirely different to a fantasy on you're talking to on the phone, right? And moving into his house, we saw photos of, of a woman who turned out to be, uh, he was a widower.
He, he'd lost her. Um, and. Anyway, we went up to his bedroom and we had, neither of us had any intention of having any sort of holy sex. It was smart from the go, right? It was like, you got a need. I want money. Let's do it. And, but by the end of it, both of us were in unexpected. We had that thing, our hearts expanded, our surrender to the moment we went deep into the flow space.
We were just, both of us were crying, crying. This is take it up the shitter guy, right? Wow. Which I didn't by the way, but that's okay. Sure. Doesn't matter. Yeah. I didn't. And he looked at me and he said, Wow, I had no idea that I could ever feel like this again since my wife died. In fact, I'd never felt this before.
I've never felt this before. I didn't know I could feel like this. What even is this? Wow. And I, and I knew what it was from my other experiences, but I did not expect to have it there in that sort of context. Right. Right. I did not expect that at all. And so I, I wandered off and we never saw each other again.
And that was that, but I. began a, a quest to work out. I'm now interested. I'm not just interested in getting my 20 grand for an operation. Now I'm interested in working out how sex works. What's going on here? How does it work? How can I. access this on purpose. And this is when I did a whole, I mean, I learned from experts all around the world.
I learned the Tantra stuff. I learned the somatic embodiment sexology work. I trained as a professional dominatrix. I worked as a private escort and worked in brothels, learned erotic massage skills, did all of the, all of the things, right. But none of them could answer why sexual fantasies Smutty sexual fantasies were taking us to that place.
Even amongst the kinksters who know that you can get into subspace, who know that you can get into, uh, endorphin rushes and that sort of thing could not explain what I was talking about. And my kinky clients later on came divinery. Eventually I set up this whole play space in Sydney, um, with mult, multiple different rooms for themes and a dungeon, a massage room and cross dressing room and all other things.
Yes. Uh, and my clients actually named my play space the Divine. I, because I love, I love, my name is Artesia Divine. And they said, well, it just feels like we're divine, you know, divining for water, divining, and inside ourselves. When we come here, we're divining the erotic. Mm-Hmm. . So we call it the divine.
That was cool. I love that. They would say the same things. I mean, I kept a diary of the kinds of things that they would say after the sessions, the smutty sessions, the kinky sessions that I was doing, that I would kept stumbling across these spaces with them. And I thought, nobody's going to believe me.
Nobody's going to believe me that they're saying this. I'm having these, what even feels wholesome. Like it feels like. The most profound thing you can experience. And here it is doing erotic massages, doing a classic style sex, doing full on BDSM all from following their fantasies, always following and trusting their fantasies, recognizing that there was something in that, that was a map leading somewhere important inside of ourselves.
It's like, Ooh. So, I don't know. Are you interested in having me read a couple of their responses?
Nicole: I know all the listeners would love to hear the juiciest ones you have.
Artemisia de Vine: Yes. All right. Well, I'll read some and see how you see, see if you can stop me if I get too carried away because it's my favorite geek out stuff.
Go for it. This is about three sessions I did in a row that show that following someone's unique wiring takes them somewhere beyond where they thought possible outside of their mind and outside of time.
I mummified him completely depriving him of movement and sight. The only thing exposed was his genitals and nipples. I then spent a couple of hours alternating between pleasure and pain, whispering words designed to trigger his particular psyche at just the right moments, relentless, till he fell out of his mind.
And time. Afterwards, he said, that was the first experience I've ever really had of being pushed past the boundaries I knew after 25 years of BDSM. That was breathtaking. His face was unmasked in awe. I didn't know. I had no idea. All this time I thought it was about what made me feel horny and made me feel subspace, but, but this, I don't even have words for this.
I couldn't have cared less if I came or not. It was beautiful, he said gently crying in the afterglow. His head on my lap. I stroked his forehead as I hummed. And I felt my soul. His session was only one of three today. The other two also left with unexpected erotic discoveries. You nailed it. Said client number two, you just got inside me and well, got me.
You should write a book on the psychology behind this because clearly you really had some incredible insight. And it's yes, it's a bloody well should I replied. Oh yeah, you did. Client number three just. Beamed and grinned fit to split his face.
I'll tell you what, it's not all nice people. Humans are humans, right? Humans are annoying. So it's not like we started off like, just like taking up the shit, it's not like we started off in this space. We moved from one state to another by following the map inside the fantasies and trusting that his own psyche knew the way.
It knew there was something there, something really important there, it was a story. Mm hmm. I have more I could read if you want or should we, what do you think? Up to you.
Nicole: I can definitely respond to it, but if you feel like there are any more that you feel are like just like juicy enough that you want to drop, go for it.
Artemisia de Vine: Alright. Lucky I was in a good mood. Because he was one of those white boy geek guys who had to pretend he already knows everything you tell him. It was clear, he didn't already know. But his automatic ego self protection mechanism was to pretend he did. He seemed terrified. And if I could actually teach him something about his own eroticism, or anything at all really, I might have power over him.
Wow, you know, our ingrained survival tactics aren't logical, mine certainly aren't. Still, he was irritating as all fuck with his one upmanship and know it all ness. Enter my special anal massage. Managed to get his defensive ego out of the driver's seat and let Another experience come to the fore. That's a really part of big part of the art form of this anal massage and actually all erotic experiences.
It is so much more than just getting in touch with the right technique. It's about recognizing the universal human struggle to access that mysterious part of ourselves beyond our egos. It is about reading their resistances and intuiting ways around them, which you can only do if you have an awareness of how to get there yourself.
Well, holy fucking shit. Well, holy fucking hell. Wow! He croaked at the end. That was incredible. I mean, it still is incredible. Even though I've come, I'm still feeling it. I'm floating. I'm tingling all over. This feels a lot like 2C B and acid and MDMA all mixed together. This is wow. Yes, it does feel a lot like that, doesn't it?
To me, it feels like I'm more real, more fully me, with access to more levels of myself than I normally am aware of. It feels like a great big embodied reminder of what life is really all about. That's what I said. He said, yes, yes, that's it. So good.
Nicole: Amazing. Yeah. I remember the first time I was like playing with rope and feeling that subspace and I was like, this feels like cannabis.
Like I've, I've felt this feeling before, right? I know what this feels like. So yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, from the psychology side, I'm just thinking about the, like, existential narratives that we're always creating the meaning making right of our experience and how we do that in story right through all the different archetypes and narratives and characters.
And, like, we are actively doing that each and every day. Right? Like, I have a narrative of my own life. and meaning making and how I showed up here and what the partners in my life are doing and the roles. Like it's all, you know, now we're thinking narrative therapy. They all start to kind of get real close together.
So then of course in the erotic space, it makes so much sense that there would just be such a plethora of space to be able to explore meaning making and narratives and what it can do for you. So like, yes. There's just so much up in there and psychology doesn't even get into it at all. It's crazy to me.
Artemisia de Vine: It's interesting that, that people do turn to, um, psychologists though, to be the experts of the mind. So if the media wants somebody who's an expert in sexual fantasies, they will look for a therapist to speak or an academic to speak rather than somebody who has lived the experience and the framework to explain it.
And it's, it's, it's not cutting it. Which is dangerous. It's dangerous.
Nicole: I would call it dangerous, right? Because until the DSM 5, BDSM, kink, all that was pathologized and obviously the reality is that still it is in a lot of bias that the clinicians hold, but in our holy book of diagnostics, it was a diagnostic criteria, um, a diagnosis to have just like homosexuality was, right?
Like all these different things that if, if we put all of our faith into the patriarchal society, the patriarchal power of the field of psychology, We can have really serious harm. Because of the ways of the bias. Yeah, it's crazy.
Artemisia de Vine: Yeah, I do. I am quite concerned actually with, um, the stories that I hear from my clients that they've heard from their therapists and most therapists, uh, have really, they have no intention of harming someone.
They really got into the work because they tried to, they're really invested in the opposite of harming people. Right. So it's just, it's not, not the therapist's fault, but there's no training or support available. And this is one of the things that motivated me to, well, I'm writing my book on the value of sexual fantasy.
So I'll tell you all about how my theory works and you can learn how I did things. I'm also doing a second book, which is a collaboration from sex workers who are, it's about the thought leadership. Of sex workers, the wisdom that has come from living the experience itself. And we're calling it SWISDM, sex worker wisdom.
Nicole: Cool. Love that.
Artemisia de Vine: So we're creating our own home court. Like, so we, we want actually people to recognize that while it is still very important to turn to therapists and psychologists for things of the mind. There's also another home court, which is just as valuable and should be listened to. And some of the thought leadership that's come out of sex work is a phenomenal, some of the consent conversations that we're having are all owed to the wisdom of sex workers.
Actually, there's a lot, a lot in there.
Nicole: Yep. My favorite conversations have been with sex workers on this podcast because they know a space of healing. The stories that you were just sharing are like literal healing stories of embodiment and pleasure and connection.
Artemisia de Vine: It's healing because it's, it's realizing that your sexuality wasn't wrong in the first place.
But I also want to, like, you're right, it is, it is healing to have that happen. Like, wow. Yeah. But. It's also, I want to move away from that whole healing narrative. That's actually, what's different about my theory and my, my framework, my lens that I'm looking at is because the people who've written about the erotic psyche, how the mind works have been therapists and they've looked at it through the lens of.
Trauma, trauma, what happened in your childhood, unfinished business in your childhood and your adolescence. Uh, they look at it through that lens because that's what the lens of therapy is supposed to do, right? My lens is through the lens of a writer who knows how stories work, how stories. Change you. If you go and see a movie, if you read a book, you feel emotions along with the characters.
You get goosebumps, you cry, you laugh, you fall in love, you, you, you feel terror, uh, and you change with the characters. All stories are about encountering a theme. Having a desire or having a desire and trying to reach it, probably misunderstanding what your own real desire is. Most characters do and change partway through the story.
All right. So having a desire driven motive, having obstacles in the way that need to be overcome and getting to your, your climax of some sort, it could be a happy ending. It could be a sad ending, but it is all about focusing on a particular thing. So. Uh, you're looking at Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit.
Initially, you wouldn't think about this as a theme. It's, it's kind of like unconscious, but it's there. There's a theme of home. The Hobbit's home that is so important to the Hobbit and the choosing between the comfort zone and going on an adventure. I mean, the dwarves have lost their home and like all of them have got themes and how they're reacting to home and trying to, Create home for themselves.
You've got different characters responding to the same things in different ways. And we as readers get to practice encountering different ways to responding to one theme by going into the story and feeling it with them and experiencing this, right? So then sexual fantasy is actually the same when you start looking at it.
I could start looking at the themes inside of it and I go, okay, I can start with, anyway, let me back up a little bit before we go too geeky into how that works. I want to explain a concept about how, how this all ties together first. I said that, that sexual fantasies are the exact story your ego in particular needs to hear because sexual fantasies aren't like normal stories in the books.
They're different. They're different. They've got a noticeable difference. You can feel that's a smart story. And that is a non smart story, even if it's got sex in it, right? You know that it's got a different rhythm, a different cadence, a different kind of theme, a different kind of logic to it. And there's a reason for that is because this story is trying to achieve a very particular thing.
It is trying to get your guards down. So keeping in mind that I'm not a therapist and that I am using metaphorical. Models, not scientific models. I'm all about the stories, right?
Nicole: Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.
Artemisia de Vine: Keep in mind that. Let's use a very simple definition of what an ego is. An ego gives you a sense of self.
Without it, you do not have a sense of self. You just sort of blur into everythingness. All right. So it gives you this. Which, you know, is actually really useful to blur into everything in certain circumstances. Hint, hint, hint, hint. Yes. Right. But this separateness, it keeps you separate, it gives you, uh, it's really concerned about your self identity.
Who you think you are. I am an intelligent person. I'm a good person who considers others. I am like, who is my identity? Yes, it's very concerned with protecting who you think you are. It is also very concerned about your self worth. So self worth is, you know, I am how other people value you. I am desirable because I'm beautiful.
I am, Uh, worthy of being paid because I have a unique idea, like all of this self worth stuff that, uh, ego will get very threatened if, if any of those things get threatened in our lives, right? And the other one is status. So it's the three S's status, and that is how you fit into society and rank in society.
And, um, our ego will get very defensive. If somebody pushes you down. So it puts you down. So, you know, just think in terms of how annoyed you get. If you, if somebody, did you just patronize me? Did you mansplain to me? Who do you think you are? I need to put you down into your place because you put me, you think I'm beneath you.
I'll put you down. That's how the ego responds when it feels threatened and status, right? That's always worried about saving face and never being embarrassed and keeping dignity. Right? So all of these things are really useful and we need an ego. It's a healthy functioning thing and we can't interact in the world without it.
Right. We need it. We need it, but it's in the way of connecting.
Nicole: Yeah. I guess I disagree with the idea of the ego. I don't believe in it per se or use that sort of language, especially given like the Freudian nature and like how it, it gets. Complex and has such a history of, like, being known as, like, something that the psychoanalysts would be able to read of the client and stuff.
And for me, I guess, like, I see that drive is of, like, wanting a concept of self as really reflective of Western culture of, like, this idea of the self rather than the collective and, like, different centuries of people existing with more of a sense of self that was community based rather than the self.
And, like, These pieces of self worth and saving face as like the desire to stay in connection. So I don't know. I don't, I don't get too much into the ego as much as maybe other people, but I think that in the same space, we're talking about the connection, like you were talking about it being staying connected.
And that's kind of where I try to come back that all of us want to be connected with one another rather than like this ego drive that's up in the psyche running us per se.
Artemisia de Vine: Okay. Yeah, cool. Well, I, I, I agree with you that the cultures definitely have a massive impact on the idea of what an ego is or if it even exists.
When I start watching all of the stories, because I'm all about the stories from other cultures, you have to reframe everything. It's like, Oh, hang on. That base assumption I thought about that is just not there. I've got to rethink about the collective instead of self is the most important thing. Wow.
What's that like trying that on. With stories, right? Absolutely. I agree with you on that, but I think that, that it's a really useful lens to temporarily put on because there is a state when you are defensive about these things. You are defensive about your sense of self and you are defensive about your identity, your self worth and your status.
And that is a natural impulse that comes up inside of you and it keeps you separate. So imagine. That you are in a castle wall, like, and the wall is protecting you. Uh, um, it's a really important wall because, you know, you do need to protect your self worth and your identity and your status. That's an important thing to protect, but it keeps you from the going outside into this incredible.
Being one with the whole world experience outside the castle walls, right? And it is just, you can't even ask someone on a first date without leading that wall down a little bit, just to take the risk to ask them out to lean in for a first kiss. You have to somehow lower your guard a little bit and take the risk of threatening that sense of self in order to get this connection moment beyond the wall, right?
If we can think about it that term and not get too caught up on whether that's an ego or not, that might be useful. Sure, yeah, totally, I hear you. Because I'm not a therapist, I'm just using models and I change them as, you only use a metaphor as long as it's useful and then you change it. That's why stories are magic.
Nicole: Yeah, and as, yeah, and the frame that it usually, I think, It gets into those like, like scary spaces when it's this, uh, lack of control over it. I think that's where my existential professor was always like pushing back on psychoanalytic theory as this sort of like, you have no control over these impulses and these things and all this stuff that kind of like old Freudian lens of that sort of, uh, space.
And I think that's where usually I get a little worried when people start to use ego and stuff as this sort of. Something that's not situated in our cultural context. Something that you don't have autonomy over. And like, in some ways you don't, but that's because of the way we've internalized stories about who we are and what it means to exist in this world.
Right. Yeah. But I'm curious, I'm curious to like, in terms of the past, trauma is not being a part of that. I almost feel like that's impossible in some ways, right? Like it's impossible. Okay. Go for it. Take me, take me there. Take me there. Let's, let's go. Okay.
Artemisia de Vine: So I just want to finish this metaphor story because it's a really useful one.
So yeah, we're still in the castle walls. Yeah. Imagine on, on the bridge, on the way out, you want to go out and connect. You want to connect with life itself. You want to connect with another person. You want to let your guards down. And you want to be vulnerable so that you can. Do this. Okay. It's entering into this fear of vulnerability and standing on that bridge are three guards and those guards are those three S's that I talked about before they are self self worth, self identity and status.
And these things come up in sexual fantasies. All the time. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. Those addressing the, those three fears is the entire purpose of the fantasy. So you're going up to that guard, the first one about status and, and it's saying, okay, no, I can't let you through. You might get embarrassed and you can't be vulnerable.
You might be embarrassed that will mean they have power over you and they could abuse it. It's a possibility that they could abuse it. So no, I'm not letting you through. I have all of these fears about what power abuse could happen, how your emotions could be crushed, how you, how you could lose your, your, your standing in society.
If you do this, you cannot be vulnerable and it won't let you past. But then there's sexual fantasy inside of you, which is also you, you know. Comes up and tells this perfect story to this guard that includes the fear. All stories have to include the fear. So you have to include these themes of things that you're actually don't, that you're scared will happen on some level.
And then the perfect way to resolve that fear in logic that makes sense to that part that's scared of being vulnerable. Right? So it's this perfect story of including the poison, the obstacle, and creating an antidote which creates an alchemical effect and now that guy goes, Oh, you solved it for me. Okay.
I'll let you pass. I'll let you pass. I'll let you pass. And the three, um, the story appeases all three of those guards. And when they let you, and you hit all three of them, uh, that's when somebody has those kinds of responses I was talking about earlier on, uh, reading back from my diary. That's when they're like, Oh, I didn't know I could get past all three guards.
I didn't know I could actually embody this story in play in such a way that would enable me to drop into this state beyond that, that wall. And really experience who I am without that defensiveness in the way and share that with someone else. Isn't that one of life's most precious experiences?
Nicole: Yes. And I can hear the connections to psychedelics, right?
I can hear the connection right there for me.
Artemisia de Vine: Yeah, you might have different terms of describe it, but you can feel it. Okay, good. Yeah.
Nicole: Oh, totally. I can absolutely feel it. I guess I'm, I'm just trying to like, uh, as you say it conceptualize for me how I would understand it for myself. So then it's going through all of my like paradigms of thought because I'm thinking about my own sexual fantasies and I'm like, has there always been a fear in it?
Has there always been these things and like the ways in which I've at least experienced it? Try to understand how, like, traumas do play into my own narratives of fantasy and joy. I think that, like, maybe you were going to get to that, so maybe I should create more space to spa Yeah, to do that part before I start to riff on my own theories, but go for it.
I'll let, I'll let you take the lead.
Artemisia de Vine: Okay. So people have always, we keep going back to trauma as the, as the source of our fantasies. I'd really like to, uh, to not do that. Of course, things that affect us do affect our egos or our sense of self or our self worth or our self identity. Of course they are part of it.
But I don't think that is the central reason for these kinds of fantasies, right? Where people just immediately default to that being the most, the biggest source. And when you do that, you stop yourself from being able to access this story in a way that is the most powerful way possible. These stories happen anyway.
We have. Fantasies of power abuse, of non consent, of humiliation, of all of these things, whether or not we have a trauma history, because they are the fears of our ego. Right. Our ego is afraid of any form of vulnerability. It's against all vulnerability because it fears those things will happen. So of course the particular expression of that will be affected by your life experiences and how you were formed.
And that includes trauma, but it does not automatically mean that. Turn ons that are based in humiliation and power abuse are from trauma, which is a really important difference.
Nicole: Totally. Absolutely. Because like you said, they exist beforehand. Right? And I think that 1 thing I like to talk about too, is like, I guess, it's, The word trauma is used in a lot of different contexts.
Some people will try to really strictly define it and say it's, it's actually this five diagnostic criteria. And if you don't meet that, it's not that right. And some of us might use it more large in a large context. And I certainly use it in a very large context because I think that growing up in a puritanical society where I was taught as a woman that I was supposed to give my body to a man.
That's a trauma in and of itself. Right. So I think that. When we're thinking about how these things are shaped, there's more context to the ways that, like, the word trauma could be expanded into the narratives of our life. Literally, when we think about the patriarchy, like, the narratives of what it meant for me to be a woman are a fucking trauma.
That I have experienced. And so, yeah, it plays into my fantasies, right? In a way that I think is inescapable, like, in the same way that, you know, I am in my context and the environment is always shaping me. I'm a fish and water that I can't even see. And I don't think that that has to be in a disempowering way.
Right. If anything, let's like, take it in the acts, the opposite. Like, this is the society that I was born in. And these were the narratives of what it means to be a woman. And so it created this context. And I'm going to create my own narrative. Like one of the dominatrix said on my podcast, my own fascist state to run in, you know, it's like, I think there's so much empowerment in the reality that our societal context has created a trauma that we've all internalized.
And it doesn't have to be this like space of like, Oh, it's so like, I'm so weak to this. And I'm so, you know, like vulnerable to this. I think there's a lot of reclaiming in the traumas that we didn't get a choice of to grow up in this context of what it means to be a woman, at least for me. Right.
Artemisia de Vine: Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Great stuff. Love your rant.
Nicole: That's my context.
Artemisia de Vine: All right. That's really good. I found it really helpful to stop thinking in terms of trauma for myself, even though you could very, very convincingly point to lots of things in my life that are traumatic. I found it useful to let go of, of that and think in terms of, okay, I'm using my eroticism as a way to process.
All of life and what it means to be human, what it means to be human is to not always be in control, to have things happen against that. You don't want to have to happen to you. Like a tornado can come through like a, you know, a car accident can happen or some, your boss can not understand you and not give you a promotion.
Like things happen outside of your control and that feels shit. Yeah, it does. So that part of processing that is through story is through this narrative that goes, okay, you had this powerless experience, which stopped you from letting go into this flow state into this complete space of no self doubt at all into this space of just pure being and connection with something that feels much bigger than yourself and another person, this, this feeling of awe and wonder.
That you're even alive. You can't access that while you're, you're feeling this powerlessness, that is a natural, normal part of being human. So here's a story to transform that. So you can now temporarily enter into this other place where you have no self doubt and you're not thinking at all. You're just feeling, you're just being.
The kind of freedom of a dog running madly in the park without any self consciousness at all. That kind of freedom of just being in a body for the joy of play.
Nicole: Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. And our existential world where we have literally no control over things like that. Like we seemingly have control of our world, right?
And then something happens and your whole life changes, right? Someone's like, we don't even have to go down the path of all the dark things that can happen that are outside of our control. But like, like you said, that reality. creates a persistent desire for control, hence the ability to play in your narrative and with other people with the eroticism of that.
I like, I like what you said about taking it out of the frame of trauma and into a space of understanding the world and play through narrative. I think there's a lot of power in that.
Artemisia de Vine: Thank you. Yeah. I found that as a, as a, um, dominatrix, uh, there was two ways in which I could get that There's two, two main ways.
I know you don't like the word ego, but hey, go for it. Um, two ways to get an ego to stand down so you can feel what it's like to who you are beyond it. Yeah. Right. One is to make your ego so small that it lets go and it becomes safe. But you know, you be, you become the submissive, you become the one that is being done to the, the one who's objectified, the one who is serving somebody else's needs.
Until you let go and it dissipates and you have this experience of being nothing and everything all at once. And this other way of doing it is to build your ego up so big. Oh my God, I'm the hero. I am Superman or I am God. Of course, my golden shower. You know, is valuable and you should drink it and pay me to, for the privilege.
Mm-Hmm. , of course, I am the goddess of the fucking universe. Oh, now my ego's so safe. It also dissipates. I've got no self-doubt and now I've got beyond the wall that way. Now I'm here together with this other person playing in this wonderful place.
Nicole: Mm-Hmm. . So this is, yeah, two ways to be able to get to that same state of, uh, disillusion like you were talking about earlier.
Right.
Artemisia de Vine: Yeah. Dissolution. Yeah. So let's think of something that doesn't seem like it's going to be holy at all. Let's think of a common fantasy, which is cuckolding fantasy, right? Any gender can have this, uh, fantasy, but let's go with a, uh, heterosexual male who's, it's his fantasy. Fantasy. Fantasy. And. He's got a partner and he is very excited by the idea of her denying him sex or, uh, and not being interested in having sex with him, but having sex with everybody else and rubbing it in his face about how their, their dick so much.
bigger, how they're, they're just so much more, they satisfy her in every way that he couldn't, they've got all of the manly man symbols that he doesn't have, you know, all of the things, uh, that he fears he couldn't possibly be for her to fulfill her. Right. And he gets very sexually excited by her humiliating with it.
And she might, uh, make him, you know, lick. Lick up the cum from her, her pussy from after somebody else with a much better dick with much better sexual prowess has left there for him. And he can feel the humiliation of that. And that does not sound like it's going to be a place that takes you to this wholesome thing I was talking about before.
Nicole: In our context, in our world, I think we're rewriting that world.
Artemisia de Vine: Yeah. Yeah. But actually, if you look at it as a story, it's literally included all his fears. Just like I said, like the, the, the guards standing in the door, you're not good enough to feel sexual pleasure. You're not, your Dick's not big enough.
You're you're not manly enough. Your identity is not enough for her to be satisfied. You, you know, all of these things that are stopping him from feeling as though he can connect his self worth, right? It's there, it's really clearly there, but then the story solves that for him. The poison's there, but also the antidote.
Because if you look at any of the images of cuckolding, pretty much all of them, he, he might be looking humiliated and tired and looking really tiny next to these prowess people having great sex. But often the bull, which is the person who's got the big dick, he's coming, you know, his face is often not really the feature in the picture.
He's almost faceless because his identity is actually. Not important. The wife's identity is important and she's almost always looking directly at the husband, the cuckold and her full attention is on him. She's actually doing everything for him that he needs to get excited and that. You could cut the tension between the, the, in the eye contact, even if on the surface, it looks like she's mocking him.
Actually, she's being the exact antidote. He's getting the connection with her that he wanted, right? It's, it's like this part of you said, I'm not going to let these fears. Of yourself worth block you from, uh, from connecting with your wife. I'm going to find a story that's going to let you get there. And it does.
And it does beautifully. And the feeling of connection, if you hit all of, if you go and try and live that fantasy out for real life and you don't include the antidote, you only include the poison. You just go and fuck someone else in front of your husband. And you don't give that full attention back. The antidote's not there.
It's just going to feel awful. They're going to not know why, that they were so turned on by that fantasy, and it just feels terrible. But if you include the poison and the antidote, they're going to feel so close to you, so seen, so accepted, so played with. Somebody's seen myself, my unacceptable psyche, and they wanted to play with it with me.
Totally. I feel the most connected ever. That's where we're going with this. So powerful.
Nicole: So, so powerful. Yeah, because like, those messaging, like that, that like internalized messaging, right, of the, my dick isn't big enough, that's not the person himself, right? Or in the cisgendered example, that's not the actual person himself or his identity or any of that, right?
That's a reflection of living in a society that has painted a world where this is the type of thing that you need. And maybe you're not meeting onto that. So then, like, in that moment, you're having a complete concern that we're losing connection, right? Like, the loss of connection to another person is one of our deepest, like, evolutionary fears.
So, like, in that world, my identity, my self is being threatened in a connection, uh, out of connection. And then to play in a fantasy and a world in a scene, whatever language you use, where then your partner is making that such deep eye contact of seeing you in that experience, right? Like that connection fear is met, like you said, right?
With the antidote of deep connection in that. I mean, that's playing in, in the, the shadow of the erotic, right?
Artemisia de Vine: Yeah. Well, it's, I don't even think of it as the shadow. I think of it as just, this is how our psyches work. These are what our fears of connection are. This is how to tell a story to change it.
This is how we are as humans. There's nothing wrong. This is how you are as a healthy human. You have these natural fears and yes, society also has some fucked up ideas about that. But also it's just whatever society you live in, it's just not going to match who you are as an individual. There's always an inherent conflict between who you are as a self compared to who you are as a collective.
So there's always going to be friction in there to play with on a neurotic level.
Nicole: So, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's always that space. So, so then if I'm hearing correctly, like your view is that we have like innate self fantasies where like my view is a little bit more that like our fantasies are formed.
Through the unique combination of the societal context is like that kind of the space I'm hearing.
Artemisia de Vine: Not quite sure. Okay. Um, I think they're not, not necessarily inherently, no, everything interacts, nothing separate. Yeah. You can't, you're not a, we are not separate from the people around us. We're not separate from our life experiences.
It's just that there is also, um, an internal inherent. Mechanism that will be there no matter what society you're in as well.
Nicole: Yeah. Which is the desire for playing with what, like, what is that internal mechanism?
Artemisia de Vine: That is that you are not going to match the society's idea of who you think you should be because no individual does fully.
Right? Yeah. You're just not. So there will always be a conflict between who you should be to feel valuable and who you actually are. And there's going to be tension there to play with always.
Nicole: Totally. Okay. I'm hearing that. So then like the narratives of the society versus the reality of who you are and the tension, like the erotic tension that you can play with fitting in or fitting out of that box.
Yeah. A better phrase. Oof. Yeah. And what, like, what space then to play with all of that and like the ways that those shift, I don't know for you, but like for me, like what has been erotic, it has shifted dramatically as I've stepped deeper into practices and things, things that were once. Super taboo and or that were super erotic in the ways that I didn't fit the narrative of my culture have changed as my Cultural context has changed in a more like sex positive community It's been interesting to watch that like journey and evolution of your fantasies through that
Artemisia de Vine: Hmm.
I've noticed that for most people, and I totally believe you, you know yourself, but I've noticed that for most people, um, even though what turns us on changes as we meet people and the way in which that narrative comes out and is expressed and the way we relate to it, it moves from shame to joy. Right.
Uh, and, and the way that we choose to live it physically, the activities we want to do. The things that excite us, uh, change, but the underlying turn on or narrative doesn't. So if you, it's like going to, um, it's an underlying narrative of a story. You know, that that's an action story and that's a romantic story because they have an underlying thing underneath them.
Even though you could tell that romantic story in a billion different ways, it's still recognizable that that's a romance. Genre. Right. Same with people's fantasies. You go, okay, that's hardwired. That's there. And you recognize that when you learn how to pick a fantasy apart, you go, Oh, there's the underlying narrative mechanisms.
Ah, we can play with that in a billion different ways. We don't have to enact what's in their mind's eye at all. We can, as long as we know the rules of the genre, we can play.
Nicole: Yeah. Yeah. Which for me is love. and that has changed over time, like what I view as love, but like certainly love and connection and sensual embodiment, you know?
And and the for me I I also like the shadow because I like the taboo. I like the transgression. I like that space. Um, so for me, that's also part of my fantasy profile is like deeply playing into that intentionally for me. So yeah, a lot of those narratives have been the same in terms of like, they're like roots, right.
Of connection and love and sensual embodiments. But like just the narratives around them have just like radically shifted and. And continue to shift as I expand what it means to be in loving connection with other people. It's been lovely and I'm loving my ride and I'm excited for the continued evolution, right?
Like it, in my opinion, it only gets better or it has thus far for me. I don't know if it's been different for you. Yeah, exactly right.
Artemisia de Vine: Oh yeah. It just, and, and every time I think, oh, I reached the heights of what I can possibly experience with erotic, uh, the floor drops out and I find another whole layer.
It's like, whoa. Yes. This, this lens of the erotic to explore life with is, I know phenomenal. I know .
Nicole: I know every time I feel like, you know, there's obviously days where like maybe sex is not the most spark thing. You have different moods that you're tossing through and other stuff, but like truly, every time that I'm having sex, it's better and better each time. And it breaks my heart that other people aren't in that space and don't think that that's possible. So I'm really thankful that you speak to that and the possibility of that and like all of the possibilities that we can create with the narratives that we write with other people.
I want to ask you the one question that I ask everyone on the podcast, and that is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?
Artemisia de Vine: Smut.
Nicole: Do you want to say more?
Artemisia de Vine: I want them to realize that being turned on by things that seem to be the exact opposite to how you want to be treated are actually just your brilliant mind, including your fears of how you, of how you don't want to be treated and resolving them for you so that you can.
Access this wonderful place of connection and pleasure beyond that it's actually really normal whether or not you've had trauma. This is going to be a mechanism that is there. Yeah.
Nicole: And a good one, right? Very, very powerful. Absolutely. Absolutely. I really appreciate the frame and all of your expertise that you brought into the conversation today.
And also for sharing the experiences that you've had with your journal. Those are very powerful. Thank you.
Artemisia de Vine: You're so welcome.
Nicole: Yeah. Where would you want to plug so that people can find your book and everything that you do?
Artemisia de Vine: All right. So the best place to is to keep on my mailing list. If you want to keep informed about both this wisdom book and the value of sexual fantasies, but also if you'd like, there's a free exercise so that you can.
Try for yourself because we've talked a lot about things today that can seem a bit heady, a bit intellectual, and it's a concept, right? If you want to get into your body, bring this out of your head and into your bed. There's a, uh, an exercise that I'm giving away for you to try. And it is actually the exercise I use in the, it's the first thing I teach everyone who does my six months traineeship of erotic mastery called the, you know, the divinery method.
Uh, so if you want to, uh, give that a try, then you can go to my fantasy is. com and that will take you to the exercise. If you want to check out more of my podcasts or blogs or coaching packages, then I'm, uh, artemisia divine. com. And even if you spell it, dodgy, it'll still come up. It's okay.
Nicole: Yeah. I'll have all of it linked below so people can go directly to find you.
So yeah, thank you for co creating this conversation with me.
Artemisia de Vine: Oh, so fun. Thank you. Yeah.
Nicole: If you enjoyed today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast. And head on over to ModernAnarchyPodcast. com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode. I want to thank you for tuning in and I will see you all next week.