235. Learning the Language of the Creative, Erotic Intimacy with Darshana Avila

[00:00:00] Dr. Nicole: Welcome to Modern Anarchy, the podcast, exploring sex, relationships, and liberation. I'm your host, Dr. Nicole.

On today's episode, we have Darshana join us for a conversation all about erotic exploration. Together we talk about. The connection between your eroticism and your vitality becoming a professional pussy stroker and learning to receive. Hello, dear listener and welcome back to Modern Anarchy. I am so delighted to have all of you pleasure activists from around the world tuning in for another episode each Wednesday.

My name is Dr. Nicole. I am a sex and relationship psychotherapist providing that psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, author of a psychedelic jealousy guide and founder of the pleasure practice supporting individuals in crafting expansive sex lives and intimate relationships. Dear listener. What a great episode.

So juicy, full of so much good information that, gosh, my younger self just needed this. I still need these conversations, but my younger self, oh my goodness. To hear us hold this conversation with such confidence and such force and to step into more pleasure, right? To get off the sex escalator, to get off the intimacy escalator and step into an abundance space of opportunity to creatively be with the erotic your life force.

I mean. Wow. Dear listener, what an honor to be bringing people like Darshana onto this podcast to be creating free resources like this show for you. I am so grateful for all of you that send these episodes to your friends that talk about this, right? When I'm working with my therapy clients on sexuality, I'm always talking about the liberation of language.

So many of us don't have the language to discuss our pleasure or sexuality. And so every time that you're tuning in, you're hearing all of this. You're building more neuro pathways to more language to describe your pleasure and your experience. And the biggest thing I can hope for you is that you're continuing these conversations in your community.

With your lovers, with your partners, because that is the practice, right? Ugh, I'm so happy to be here with you, dear listener. I'm so grateful you're tuning in. Hey. Alright, dear listener, if you are ready to liberate your pleasure, you can explore my offerings and free resources@modernanarchypodcast.com, linked in the show notes below.

And I wanna say the biggest thank you to all my Patreon supporters, you are supporting the long-term sustainability of the podcast, keeping this content free and accessible to all people. So thank you. And with that dear listener, please know that I'm sending you all my love and. Let's tune in to today's episode.

Dear Listener, there's a space already waiting for you where you are invited to let go of every old script about sex and relationships, and begin living a life rooted in your pleasure. Empowerment and deep alignment. I'm Dr. Nicole, and this is your invitation to the Pleasure Liberation Groups, a transformative, educational, and deeply immersive experience designed for visionary individuals like you.

Together we'll gather in community to explore desire, expand relational wisdom, and embody the lives we're here to lead. Each session is woven with practices, teachings, and the kind of connection that makes real trans. Possible, and I'll be right there with you, guiding the process with an embodied curriculum that supports both personal and collective liberation.

This is your invitation into the next chapter of your erotic evolution. Say yes to your pleasure and visit modern anarchy podcast.com/pleasure practice to apply.

And the first question that I like to ask everyone on the show is how would you introduce yourself to the listeners?

[00:05:17] Darshana: I would introduce myself by saying, well, first, I'm Darina, and it is a pleasure to get to be having a conversation that whomever is listening in on, is listening in on.

[00:05:27] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:05:28] Darshana: And I am.

Let me, let me go with like the non-professional, let say, oh yeah. I'm an intimacy junkie. Um, I am an erotic explorer. I'm someone who really experiences life through the sensuous, so my body and my heart, like I've got a real sharp brain, but I, I'm very tactile and a big feeler. And so that's always been there even before I shaped a whole career that encompasses these things as well.

And I would say I have a really fierce justice warrior in me that goes hand in hand with a really fierce bullshit sniffer. Nope, this is out of integrity. Nope, this is not okay. And. I have a voice that I'm not afraid to use, and sometimes that has gotten me into quote unquote trouble. And oftentimes it's been a very powerful force for opening up dialogues and introducing perspectives and engaging topics that need to be talked about that many people aren't.

I have certainly been involved in many a call in when and, and I'm also like someone who will show up to be called in. Like really, I'm here for the conversations that are us at our tender edge, us trying to figure out how we do this whole human thing together in a good way and everything. And anything that could fall under the heading of the erotic is, is my love and my playground and my mission.

So here we are.

[00:07:16] Dr. Nicole: Yes, absolutely. Well welcome. And you know what they say? All the good feminists are getting in trouble, right? And always have been. Right?

[00:07:24] Darshana: Oh, yes, we have. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I started young.

[00:07:28] Dr. Nicole: Yeah. Starting pushing the edge. And so we need that. We need that. And so I'm curious for you, what was the turning point to start your career in this?

What really? Yeah. Yeah. What lit the fire?

[00:07:41] Darshana: There were, it was like a few things flowed together. I, we, we could say, there's the chapter of my twenties where I got married very young mm-hmm. And was in a cis het, monogamous vanilla marriage, like pretty run of the mill lovely guy that I was married to. We did the best we could.

While in that relationship, I started to have a very significant spiritual awakening that was happening to through explorations of classical yoga. Sure. And the long and the short of it is my love affair with my spiritual path and the life that I was living inside of my marriage were not. Working and it was actually my ex-husband who called it, like he, he's the one saw that that was going on and was super supportive, always all along of me following my joy.

But when it became so clear how central that was to my life and how disinterested he was and a whole bunch of other stuff, sure. We parted ways. So here I am, fast forward, late tail end of my twenties. I'm like Yogi Central, freshly divorced, dad dies. Oof. Sends me even deeper down the spiritual. And I'm also dating for the first time in like almost a decade.

Wow. Having sex with other people, having other kinds of sex than I even knew I could be having. And so there's a sexual awakening going on and. After a while of Okay. Sexuality's. Oh, siloed over here. Spirituality is siloed over there. Ah, still going along with my corporate career, which a lot of people don't know that I ever had one of those, if you can meet me in this chapter of life.

Sure. Um, I got to a point where having those things so compartmentalized wasn't working for me and also trying to earn a living. And that phrase irks me to this day like that, that we have to earn our living. But, but working in a job that frankly was soulless for me, the best thing about it was the flexibility that I had and the money that I was making that let me go off to India for six weeks and, and like start to really like, immerse in deeper ways until I got to the point where I took a leap of faith and I quit my job.

I moved across the country with what was in my car, knowing nobody went from East coast to west coast, moved to the Bay Area, San Francisco Bay area, which is a blessed epicenter of,

[00:10:27] Dr. Nicole: yes it is

[00:10:27] Darshana: sex positivity, progressiveness all, I mean, all sorts of counterculture. And I found myself like really, really fortunately, I, I count this as one of the greatest blessings that's ever happened.

It was as if a red carpet had rolled out for me. Mm-hmm. When I got here in so much as getting introduced to this person who, who opened the door to that community who said you should take this workshop, and oh, you gotta know this person. Like, there was a lot of synchronicity and within my first few weeks I was landed in a community that really was focusing on embodiment and arrows.

And classical tantra came alongside with the, the classical yoga that had been in my, my field already. Also, the westernized versions of both of those things too, which I have some commentary around. Sure. Yes. And, and basically I, I, within a month of landing in California, I gave notice to my corporate employer of a decade at that point with my, you know, 401k and my salary and my benefits and all the things, and thank goodness for how naive I was that I I, because if I knew what I was choosing from an entrepreneurial standpoint, I might not have, but I just had this idea that like, well.

I'm gonna become a coach. Yeah. And I didn't even necessarily think it was gonna focus on sex. I thought it was gonna focus on spirituality. Sure. I thought that because I was coming out of the corporate world, I'm like, oh, well I'll just become a coach who helps other people in the corporate world be more spiritually fulfilled.

And I thought it was that simple. Anybody who knows anything about becoming a a, a coach of any sort knows that that's like laughably crazy. Mm-hmm. And there is something to be said for when life wants something for you or from you. If you keep saying yes, and that was really what it was like for me. It was a series of me saying yes to things that from a certain perspective, if you were outside looking in, you'd be like, she is nuts.

What, what is she thinking? Why would you give up the stability that this, that the other, I'm crisscrossing the globe. I'm going from California to India, back to California to Bali. I'm spending time with all these tantra teachers and these deep immersive experiences. And then I find myself in a community where I got to live with someone who's still, I, I, I honor as one of my dearest mentors, I got to live with him and about 10 other people for three months in Bali, which is kind of like insanely privileged and gorgeous experience to have.

And all of the women who were part of that community, unbeknownst to me at the time of like stepping in, were sex workers.

[00:13:39] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:13:41] Darshana: And I didn't even know what that term meant. Sure. I mean, if I knew anything about it, it was shaped by like watching Pretty Woman and distinctly, I'm not kidding. Like, like that was the, that was all I knew at that time.

So here I find myself surrounded by these women who, same as me, they were educated, they were solidly middle class, they were deeply spiritual, dynamic, fulfilled humans who made a lot of money given sexy massages. Mm-hmm. And then they took that money and they could go off to this island paradise. I mean, and there was a lot to be said about white people flocking to brown countries and you know, we can go there.

Mm-hmm. But at that time I was just like, wow, we you do what for a living?

[00:14:29] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:14:29] Darshana: And so I really got to be apprenticed by this community of recognizing that whatever. I narrow ideas I thought I held about sex work were incredibly narrow.

[00:14:45] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:14:46] Darshana: And that it's a very diverse, I mean, I consider myself a sex worker still and always.

Yeah. Even though my version of sex work happens to be completely public, I don't have to hide it. I'm very credentialed and I also have incredible respect for the people who have none of that stuff going on and are doing beautiful work. That's where I started. I started giving sexy massages.

[00:15:11] Dr. Nicole: Hmm.

[00:15:11] Darshana: I started, you know, putting together information that I was picking up from my tantra experiences.

Sure. And being in these communities and it was like, okay, well here's a way to make money. And that money is what paid for all of the professional trainings that got me to where I am today. And I, I mean, I think this is answering the question you started. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're, yes, we could talk, you know, we could do a big, fast forward to where I am now, and I, you know, it's an objective truth to say that.

So my, my professional scope of practice sits very squarely at the intersection of trauma and really experiential, embodied, hands-on hands in erotic sexual, intimate healing work. And sexological body worker is one of my certifications. It's a pretty fringe modality that many, many people have no idea exists, which breaks my heart, and I am doing my part to change that.

And one of the things that I've done to change that is Gwyneth Paltrow and her brand came knocking a few years ago, and. Featured me and several other people on a Netflix series called Sex, love, and Goop. Yep. And it was a watershed moment in so many ways because millions and millions of people around the world got to see that there are ways to engage with our intimate relationships, with our sexuality, with our trauma, with our healing journeys, with so many of the things that we struggle with in silence.

Yeah. With so many of the things that even well-intentioned therapists are really ill-equipped to handle. Yeah. And. So, yeah, I'm probably one of the best known sexological body workers out there, and I still am hanging out on the fringes, you know, in a mainstream context, um, because this is not something that most people have any concept of.

And I'm really passionate then about doing whatever possible to change that. Um, so, you know, like I, I got off the phone yesterday with a prospective client who is in their mid thirties and is, has never had partnered sex.

[00:17:34] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:17:35] Darshana: And has, you know, was diagnosed with vaginismus and, and told all these things about what's physically going on in her body.

And thankfully she had a, thera has a therapist who is like, you know, I think this, there might be more to this. You should see a sexological body worker. She was in tears during our, our consultation call, I'm sure just to be given the hope back. That she's not alone, she's not broken. That there are ways to be supported, you know?

So, so that's what I, that that's what I get to do. The entrepreneur piece is, is its own thing, but the, the, the healer, practitioner, educator, facilitator piece, that that's what I get to do. And it's, it's a blessing. Truly, truly a blessing.

[00:18:23] Dr. Nicole: Hell yeah. We're gonna get into all of it, but first I just wanna say congratulations, you know, to that younger part of you that took that leap of faith and made it all the way onto the Netflix.

But I mean, like, hell yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:34] Darshana: Oh yeah, exactly. I I am, I, I mean, I could not, I could not have painted that picture if I had tried back then. Oh, yeah. Right Here we're

[00:18:44] Dr. Nicole: absolutely, absolutely. Yes. Yes, yes. Uh, and it's such needed work. It's such needed work. I think there was, as you were speaking, so much coming up from my own journey that.

I get afraid to talk about, but I am going to do it anyways, and I continue to do it anyways. I think, um, the, the field of psychology is so cognitive, so cognitive, so cognitive, so cognitive. I've laughed on this podcast many a time that I didn't get a single somatic education in my training of five years except for the fact that I was training, uh, more clinically at a somatic based site because of psychedelics.

So my actual clinical training had more of that. But the academic training, there was not a single somatic touch to it at all. And I would laugh because I would be in a neurobio class and we'd be talking about, oh, cortisol, cortisol, cortisol, cortisol. And I'm like, well, what do we actually do with the cortisol in the body folks?

No, we're not just talking about the neurochemistry. What do we do with that? You know? So I find it really ridiculous that. I went through five years of like the highest level of educational training on clinical psychology and not a single class on the body. Now we can, that's a huge part of the, what you just said, right?

Is the fact that many therapists don't even know. I'm so glad that therapist knew to recommend you to their client. Yeah. But so many therapists don't know any of this, and then we add on the lack of any level of sexual education at all. Right. And so in my journey, I, you know, coming from my own experiences with sexual trauma, I had heard of the benefits of something like a yoni massage before.

Right. And I was in my, uh, freshman or first year class where we had to do this project where we receive care rather than give care. And so I asked my professor, I was like, could I do something that's illegal? And she was like, like, like, like what are you saying Nicole? Like, like murder illegal or like sex work illegal.

'cause she kind of knew my like background of interest and I was like, well, sex work illegal. And she's like, that's fine. And I said, great. And so I scheduled a yoni massage off of the internet. Yes. And wow, what an experience it was for me. Oh my gosh. When I went to go reread my journal entry that I wrote for her, it brought up so much because in my journal entry I was basically like, this was a really transformative experience.

I was so in my body. And I think what brings up a lot for me now is I had written like, it's the first time that someone ever asked me like, do you, is there anywhere you don't wanna be touched? That was the first time someone ever asked me that. Right. And that was profound. And so I felt so safe with her to have written this project and done this experience.

And then when I was training at a clinical site and we were talking about sexual trauma with this one case, I brought it up to my supervisor there where I said, oh, I had this experience. It was very transformative. I got reprimanded so hard that I was asked to leave the site because they said it is inappropriate to ever talk about sexual activity like that with your supervisor.

It was one of the, yes, I kid you not, and I've never shared on the podcast yet because I hadn't gotten outta school by the time this comes out, I'm outta school. Good. And it's fine. You're like fuming. I fucking learned a lot that I, one mentor said it was okay to write as a project. Totally not okay at this other site to talk about that.

And literally got kicked out and had to like continue on with my career and I'm fine. I got my doctorate, I'm fine. But I learned a lot about the systems. Right. All in that moment. It's, you know,

[00:22:25] Darshana: we. We exist in a of disembodiment? Yes. That, that is a phrase that I have used often. Like our dominant culture is neck up, mentally focused and, and there, and with good reason for the systems of oppression that we exist inside of want us to be malleable, pliable, uh, obedient.

And so if we're not actually tuned in to our bodies, yes and no. And using your example, most of us aren't asked, do you want this? Do you not? Is there anything that's a boundary? Is there anything that's a strong preference or desire? Which for me, those questions are so. I should record them. They get spoken so often in my sessions, like, and my clients all know my favorite question to ask, how could we make this even better for you?

How can we take the baseline of wherever you're at right now and enhance your experience? And those should be questions that we're getting asked. And that should be something we're celebrating left, right, and center. Yep. But in this dominant culture that does not want us to pay attention to our bodies, that is terrified of sex, that would kick somebody out of an academic program.

I mean, that's, I can't act surprised. I am fuming. And, and this is also part of why, and I have so much respect for your path and choosing academia and all of, I'm not kidding when I say all of my best friends or therapists and assorted other, you know, PhD in this and, and doctor to that, da, da, da, da. I.

When I thought about entering into higher education for this work, everything in my body said no. Yep. Everything in my body is like, you are gonna, you are gonna bump up against so much constriction, like Uhuh. That is not your path. There are other people who are doing it. Thank you Nicole. And, and for me, also something I've heard from, I don't know, you can weigh in on this, right?

Yeah. Many of my therapist friends, like what you just said about you went through all of these years of this incredible education and not announced of it was actually about the body. Most of my friends who are therapists have said their primary education is the least valuable element of the toolkit that they bring into their practice.

It's going on to have done other trainings, many of them more somatic, many of them more experiential in nature. You know, whether that is. Hamy or, or somatic experiencing, which is one of my modalities. Like other things that have gotten layered in that really have equipped them to be more valuable as a practitioner and to meet their clients where their clients need to be met.

So yeah, I wish I could act surprised, but I'm not, I'm just pissed.

[00:25:24] Dr. Nicole: Right? Yeah. Which is a fair reaction. Absolutely. Because that's exactly what it is. It's the systems right there. Right. And so in certain, luckily for my mentor who allowed me to do the project, that was okay, but in another setting it was not.

Right. And so it's very context dependent and yeah, there is not enough training on any of this stuff. And so let alone the non-monogamy pieces, right? The amount of times I got told that never works, right? And so it's, it's, it's all around. And so I think with my current consciousness, if you were asked me, would you wanna get a doctor in clinical psychology, I'd say Absolutely not.

There's no way that I'm going into that Belly of the beast. No. So I hear you on that alignment of like, if you were to think about it now. Absolutely not. Yeah, because it's just, there's, I spent what, like, I spent like a full course on assessment and learning about the roar shock of all things, you know what I mean?

Yeah. We still do the ro I don't, I don't, lemme clarify, I don't do that. But there's still clinicians who do and getting trained in that. Right? And so, yes, yes. Uh, yes. Um, and so I think that this is such a needed area and I think that's why a lot of therapists are tuning into the podcast. I get a lot of comments from therapists who listen because I think this is just an area that's never even touched on.

And so, yeah. Yeah. And in terms of you like following that alignment, I find that to be what, you know, we talk about sexuality, but it's so passion, it's arrows. Passion is that life force. And when those things are connected, I think that's when you're in, in your erotic, you're wanting to have sex 'cause everything is in alignment.

So you're wanting to do that.

[00:26:59] Darshana: Yeah. I. You are speaking my language right there. Something that I'm like real and passionate about. I've said that already. I'm passionate about a lot of things. Yeah. Is reclaiming the notion of eroticism in its totality. So my biggest influence in that way is Audre Lorde and, you know, black intersectional feminist, very passionate and, and prolific educator, writer.

And her essay uses of the erotic, is it you For me? And so, you know, the distillation I can offer for someone listening is eroticism is more synonymous with life force than with sex. But our culture has taken it, you know, and, and you could trace this back all the way to the, the, the, the Greek and Roman myths, like, you know, where we're aeros cupid, da da, da.

But the way we've shaped that in our modern. Patriarchal capitalistic culture is, is to go heavy, heavy, heavy on the sex, leave everything else aside. And then because we also have the layers of sex being shamed, stigmatized, suppressed, secret, you know, all these things, it's like, wait a second, so, so here eroticism is all about sex, but sex is this horribly confusing, maybe dangerous.

I can't talk about it. Like what the fucking fuck. Yeah. When we widen our view and understand that arrows and eroticism has to do more with vitality, and so in that way, sure, it can include and infuse our experiences of sex, of desire, or arousal, attraction, all of that. But it's also what it is to be a sensual being.

It's what it is to be creative dynamic. So your activism, your art, your leadership, whatever you are doing in life, where creative force flows into it. Aeros is present in that, and my experience in educating from that standpoint is that paradigm shift is really liberating because the heavy emphasis on sex and all the pressure that goes along with that for so many people, because then we've got this real prescriptive, narrow idea about the right ways to have sex, who gets to have sex, how to have that sex, who's deserving of it, da, da, da, da da.

You're damned if you do it this way. You're damned if you do it that way. Like there's so much noise and so much pressure that most people are placing on sex. On the relationship where the sex is happening. So we get to take that pressure off by widening the view to understand what aeros is really about, reclaim that, and then let it infuse every facet of our life.

And so I, I often when, like, when people ask about my work or, or seek me out, and they're like, so, so you're a sex coach? I'm like, well, yeah, but it's like, it is about sex, but it's about so much more. And anyone who's worked with me would say it, like, would their whole lives have moved in a different direction after doing a deep piece of this work?

And it's very possible that they came in the door because they wanted to learn how to orgasm or because there was a, a, a trauma that they were healing or because they felt like they didn't really know how to talk about what they need and want what their partner, you know, all of that might have brought them in.

But what they come away with is an empowerment and an expansion that touches every facet of their own life. Oh God. And yeah, I just, I, you know, more people, I mean, we need more people to know this.

[00:30:56] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely. And that's why we do the work that we do. And you, you laugh in the way that you laugh. That full embodied laugh there, right?

Hell yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:31:05] Darshana: Which is, let's be clear, is because I also know how to cry that and, and grieve with that degree of openness. And that's another lesson that a lot of people learn in this kind of space, is you don't actually just get to cherry pick one or the other by opening to more of anything.

Yeah. So if you want more pleasure, if you wanna feel that aliveness, that joyfulness, you will have to get down with the aga. Yes, the grief and, and learn how to be with that totality of our human experience. And I wouldn't trade it for anything.

[00:31:39] Dr. Nicole: That's exactly what I was gonna say. Isn't it beautiful though?

I love it. I'll I'll take all of it. I'll take all of it rather than numbing and, and, yeah, exactly. Exactly. I always say that. Yeah. As hard as you can cry as how hard as you can come, right? Like that same level, like those are deeply connected, you know? Um, and I think even just the vulnerability of that, a lot of people feel very vulnerable, crying, you know?

And at the end of the day it is, you know, like emoting and, and being in your body and releasing fluids even, right? Like it is, it is whoop connected.

[00:32:10] Darshana: It's, it's a very common experience when I'm wor so to, to be clear about the scope of what my work is. I, I mean the tongue in cheek way of saying what I do is I'm a professional pussy stroker.

Sure. It's true. I do hands-on, hands in work, and I primarily work with female bodied folks. So common experience is that as we progress to the point where my clients, where I'm facilitating like a full body, more sexually focused experience for them, which is done with my hands and, and, and they approach their climax.

And most of the time, especially if that's like the first time we're going there, there is a, a well of grief that opens, there is a torrent of tears and it's, it is because you, you're cracking something open that has been held so tight and buried so deep. It's very seldom about a particular story. It can be, but it's usually more undifferentiated and it's about that place that has been holding so tightly.

Finally, feeling free. Finally feeling that there is an opening where all that, that the bracing and the suppressing and the worrying about it, it might help on a look to the other person in the room or whatever's going on the, the tremendous vulnerability and courage that it takes to go there. You know, so I'm not criticizing anybody if this is not the experience you're having in your private life.

Few of us are. But when you are being held in a container that really, really supports this. It's, it's transformational what can happen when, when in that moment the agony and the ecstasy are flowing together. The orgasm is the tears, is the release, is the liberation.

[00:34:09] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:09] Darshana: And, and it rewires people truly.

[00:34:12] Dr. Nicole: Oh yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. There's so much there. And I'm remembering from my experience, I felt such a desire to give back to the person who is providing to me, which was really interesting. I'm sure you've had that to unpack of, of, wow, I received so much pleasure. I feel this obligation to give back, like, I picked this person.

But like, I felt this like obligation to give them back. And I think it was something for me to unpack the, the, the ownership of my pleasure to just receive. And that's something that even years from that experience onward, I've still gone to unpack of what it means to just receive. And I've had tops who really love to give and don't wanna receive back.

And they're like, no, I just wanna please you. And I'm like, what? That's like so much attention. You know what I mean? And so like there's so much to expand for the person who's never had an orgasm, I had had many orgasms that it was such a different experience to be held by someone who is not your intimate partner because there was so much interpersonal dynamics already going on there.

Right. That's some of the difference when you go into a therapeutic container with a healer or a coach or a therapist, it's someone who's outside of your normal circle of people. And so the space from that relationship creates a level of objectivity that I think also plays into the physical here where you can just receive, yes.

Whoa. Yeah. Hello.

[00:35:35] Darshana: It's really incredible. So, so we're talking about containers where it's one directional touch and, and that is, that, that is something that I wish every single one of us got to experience during our formative years, and it didn't happen for you then. Please know that it's never, ever too late.

It is so profound because what you're describing is super common. Yeah. There, there is a lot of edge to bump up against, around, is this okay? Yeah. Is this okay for me to be the one receiving and, and because I only work with clients over a series of sessions, so it's not, you're never, no one gets to come in and have like a one-off yoni massage.

Sure. Like not, not knocking if that was your experience. Some people practice that way. I am taking people through many foundation building steps before we get there, including. An exploration of Dr. Betty Martin. Sure.

[00:36:35] Dr. Nicole: Yeah.

[00:36:35] Darshana: You know, I trained with Betty many, many years ago and, and, and that is a pillar of my work.

And so we get into the nuances of what we go beyond just giving and receiving, and we talk about the more nuanced exchange that's happening and how we establish that in a consensual way. And we do a lot of exercises before we're in a more fully sexual focus to help be with that part that's like, is this, can I just receive?

Right? Can I just lay here? Can I tell you what I want? And, and ex and ex and expect to get it without worrying that you're gonna think I'm being bossy or whatever. Yeah. So we do a lot of that work before we get to that point. Yeah. But then back to this whole idea of like one directional touch being so powerful because view to none of us have had the opportunity.

For such a dynamic that is all about us discerning what would give me pleasure.

[00:37:33] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:37:34] Darshana: So if I'm in the role saying, yes, I'm here to serve you happily, you know, and, and, and there is a monetary exchange, I am being compensated. Right. And also, I'm in my pleasure. Yeah. I'm in, I, I could not do this work, right.

If I did not like what I was doing. Right. And I'm really transparent with my clients about that in a energetically neutral way. Sure, I hear you. So I'm not, I'm not bringing my turn on. It's not about my arousal's, not about my preferences, it is about my boundaries. Both, you know, my professional boundaries, my personal boundaries.

Those absolutely count. But it's on me to uphold those so that if it's you, Nicole on my table, or if it's you listener, you know, that way you're, you don't have to worry about me right now. Just because you don't have to doesn't mean those thoughts might not come up. Right. Uhhuh And to work with those, we, we get to notice that the pattern of people pleasing that Yep.

Very many of us who are acculturated as girls and women carry with us. Yes. The pattern of feeling safer when we are taking care of another as opposed to being given the care. Like, like we get to look at how that is showing up in real time in, in this very intimate and expansive experience that's going on here.

And it's a real potent way then to work at dismantling. Imprinting. Mm-hmm. And, and, and claiming your seat, if you will, claiming like your agency to say like, yes, I deserve pleasure. Yes. It's okay for the focus to be on me. And also, yes, in the case of like, if, if you are my client, basically anytime you are worrying about me, you are also not wholly trusting me.

[00:39:30] Dr. Nicole: Mm.

[00:39:31] Darshana: Right. Like, you're not wholly trusting that I am taking care of myself, that I'm following through on my word because I've given you my word. I have told you I will only do things that I am a full yes to. Right. I will let you know if I, if I need a break, if something's not working for me, like that's on me.

Mm-hmm. So you don't have to worry. Is it taking too long? Is Darna okay? Right. Does she like this? Like I'll tell you if I don't Right. So, right. So something that I often. Like to impress upon people is our ability to stay in our designated role as a receiver in that instance is fundamentally like it.

Like what we're in a practice of here is trust. Yeah. Trust me. That if I'm giving to you, I want to, I'm not doing it from an empty cup, I'm doing it from a full cup. Trust me. And help me to trust you, that if I say yes, I mean yes. And if I say no, I mean no. And for many people, the notion of being really in integrity and authentic around a yes and a no is a hugely confronting back to the people pleasing.

So that's a huge part of the work that we're doing is, is unwinding that and really empowering. This is my yes, this is my, no, this is my boundary, this is my desire. And making it okay. It's okay. It's beautiful. It's actually a gift to the relationship when we have that degree of clarity. Yeah. And integrity flowing between us.

[00:41:09] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah, absolutely. 'cause that's where you feel safe. You know that person will communicate. Right. And so we heal in relationships and so you're holding that healing relationship. And then depending on the individual. The history of past relationships, you'll come with a slew of potential experiences that have either taught you, yes, you can trust that when people say their word, they mean their word, or they don't, right?

And so depending on your history with that, wherever you're at, dear listener, that will, you know, change that level of receptivity. But then you find a healing relationship, right, with a coach, with a therapist, a partner, anybody in the world who can hold that container. And you slowly start to build that level of trust back that when people say they're gonna.

Do something they will, and this reminds me a lot of, also for the listener. I do have an episode with Dr. Betty Martin. If you wanna learn more about the wheel of consent, that is in my past, uh, catalog as well. So I just wanted to plug that too, to go back there.

[00:42:05] Darshana: Um, and I would plug it as well. I've never even heard, Betty is incredible, amazing Wheel of consent is amazing, so please go listen.

[00:42:14] Dr. Nicole: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. That's the very fun one to play with. And um, yeah, it reminds me a lot of the psychedelic work that I do in terms of the container that you hold in terms of prep, having the experience. And integration. Right. So I I, I love hearing that you hold that container for people to be able to talk about all of these pieces, have the experience, and continue to talk about what it means for them.

Because in this context, it is a fricking psychedelic to have any level of sexual experience like that. In our context, there is so much meaning making and thoughts going on. I can only imagine during that moment for someone, right? It brings up so much. And like you had said earlier, we, we just really don't have the language for any of this because it is so hush hush because it is so taboo.

I really think about it as almost like a, a language that is foreign to many of us that we truly don't have the words for. I remember back in my journey earlier on, someone asking me, how do you like to be touched? And I went silent. And I didn't have an answer for that. You know, like a very simple question, but I didn't have an answer.

'cause for all the years prior, it was all on nonverbals, nonverbals, nonverbals. And so when someone from my kinky community started to ask me very clear questions, I was like, what do you mean? Right? And so I think about it almost like in the field of psychology, we have the emotion wheel and we try to help people explain like, this is that feeling.

Here's a word for that. We need that for sexuality. We really just don't have the language.

[00:43:39] Darshana: I, I created a menu. There we go. Yeah. So say really it's, it's, that's the piece that I couple with teaching the wheel of consent is I literally have a menu of touch. And so you're a hundred percent right, because here, here's the example that I like to use.

For instance, if, if we're together and you are like, Hey, well you rub my shoulders and my take on rub is that you wanna massage. Your take on the word rub is a little more caress like, are, are we wrong? No, nobody's wrong here, but we're using a word that we think the other person should understand, and oftentimes we lack the really refined vocabulary to speak clearly about the thing that we want.

So before I get anywhere near someone's body, we, I, I use forearms and hands to demonstrate this menu of touch, to speak it out loud, to repeat it multiple times and have the person repeat it back to me so that we come away with a shared vocabulary that lets us feel comfortable and confident that if I ask for something, you are going to know what I'm talking about.

If you hear something come out of my mouth as the one who's giving that, you're gonna feel confident to give me that thing. And this is, you know, I'm speaking about the way that I go about this in a client session, but everything that I'm talking about is easily extrapolated and taken out into the personal life and into the personal realm.

And so what happens when you do this kind of work is you become something of an ambassador, if you will, carrying this, this culture, this culture of how we create relationship, how we explore intimacy, how we do sex, kink, whatever it is. Like you get to be an ambassador for a culture of clarity. You get to be an ambassador for a culture of consent.

Certainly. Um, and, and learn how to have these conversations. And it doesn't have to be all at, like, I'm probably making it sound a bit more formal than it would go in a personal setting. Sure. Right. But, but it's like, you know, you, if you're with a lover, like, Hey, that what you described, I can't tell you.

This is probably 98% of my clients come to me saying, I get asked what I want and I have no idea. Yeah. I don't know how to answer this question. I don't know what feels good to me. It is so common, so fucking common. Yep. So we spend a lot of time in embodied learning about that, and then what that looks like when you come out into the wild, as it were, into your personal life, whether that's with your longtime partner or, or the person you're meeting on a dating app or whatever.

If you say or, or someone says to you like, how do you like to be touched? And, and the answer is, I don't know. You are equipped 'cause you're now an ambassador, you're equipped to be like, well how about I do a few different things and like you tell me like, it's like you, you compare and contrast. If I touch you like this, which I call this tickling, do you like that?

If I use my nails scratching, do you like that? Mm-hmm. If I squeeze you, if I massage you, if I pat you like, like so, so we, this is the kind of thing like I want you to go back to childhood. I want you to go back to that time that you might spend with a young person in your life who is newly acquiring vocabulary.

How do we help them learn? We show them, we demonstrate, we, we, we gesture, we we do it on the body. So we get to bring that same innocence, and it is a form of innocence, really a beautiful, precious innocence of our humanity. To be in this somatic learning together, God, to be in the experimenting and exploring, to not assume that I know anything about your body, that you know anything about mine.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a highly, highly trained and practiced professional. I got skills. Hell yeah. And I would never assume that if I'm putting my hands on you, Nicole, that, that I know more than your subjective experience about yourself. So, sure, I can do a lot of fantastic things. I feel confident.

But the thing that really we wanna cultivate is, is empowering the other person's agency. For them to be an advocate for themselves and for us to say thank you. Yes. Oh, you make it like that. Thanks. Cool. Now I don't have to guess. And a positive feedback loop, it just feels good. Oh yeah. Like I wanna do the thing that you like.

'cause then it strokes my ego and I feel good. And you feel good and everybody's happy. Right? Like, this isn't rocket science. Mm-hmm. But most of us, when we're following the default script, and this is born of a cis hat, you know, um, compulsory monogamy, like misogyny, all the just layer all shit on top. Yep.

And I wanna be clear, it's anything that is done from a compulsory standpoint is what I have a critique with. Right? No critique of monogamy. Actually no, no critique of cshe relating dynamics. Actually, if you are choosing them consciously and authentically. But when we are following the script that most of us are following, when we are basically like, it's the soup we've been cooked in, in our cultural collective, it goes something like person with a penis knows more, knows more, always knows more.

Yep. Especially about the person with the vagina and the vulvas body and the entirety of the sexual experience is one giant escalator that once you get on, you only get off When the penis ejaculates that is the script and it's shit, it's shit and, and, and, and it's just as shitty for the person with the penis.

Bloody be clear because I have yet to meet a single person who does not have a better time fucking someone who is enthusiastic and communicative and enjoying themselves and, and, and in that mutual exchange and feeling confident and empowered. It is better for everyone. So there's, there's my spiel.

[00:50:22] Dr. Nicole: Yes.

Bring it, bring it. You're in the right podcast space. Hello and welcome, right? Yes, yes, absolutely. And I hope that the listener who's tuning in thinks about this and. I know personal from experience how overwhelming this can all feel. I'm gonna start telling people what I want and don't want, oh my, oh my God, am I gonna hurt their feelings?

That was a long journey, right? If I say, oh, can you slow it down or do this, I was just so worried that I would upset the the person that I was with. And at the time it was just men, right? And so that is a journey in and of, in and of itself. And I think about the components of a psychedelic experience.

It's about your set and setting. So you do need a safe container, right? The setting that person, you need a safe. Partner, partners, people, healers, coach, right? All of these things, you need that to be able to have this safe space where when you say, I would like this. In that way, the person says thank you, and their ego doesn't get bruised.

'cause if that person's ego get bruised, it does get complicated. And it feels really tricky. 'cause now you're caretaking for someone with a ego that's been injured, right? And so, but when you are in the right containers and you're having this, I just hope that the listener can see this with expansion and you know.

The endless exploration, you know, as expansive as the sky, the ocean, whatever that is, that, that image that tunes in for you, dear listener, that is your eroticism and the fact that you get to explore it for the rest of your life because the only constant is change, right? And so the things that get you off today might still be the things that get you off later, but it might not.

Right? And so like what an exciting opportunity for the rest of your life to be in deep connection with the ever expansion of your pleasure and connection and intimacy and joy and aeros. I mean, it is such a life force to unpack that and, and, and when it waivers and changes for me, sometimes I get confused, but I keep following wherever it does pull me to.

[00:52:22] Darshana: Yeah. And I, I couldn't agree more. Yeah. What I talk about as culture, you know, being an ambassador of a, of a culture of consent and clarity and communication is how we establish the set and setting. So we're, we're speaking about the same thing. And what I would wanna say then, to somebody listening who may be feeling a little like, oh wow, this is a lot.

Or maybe saying how, like, how do I actually do this? The most critical piece for the how is to have conversations with partners, lovers, whomever, outside of a sexual encounter. Talk about this in moments of neutrality. Talk about this. When both of you or, or all of you, however many people are involved, are really like, resourced, able to show up, hear, and be heard, and, and you just, you know, you lean in and say, Hey, I wanna try this thing out.

I wanna try to communicate in a way where we get really curious about what's going on for each other and like, not take it so personally if the feedback is, oh, you know, that didn't feel so great. Because if we can hold everything with the energy of an experiment, right? Experiments do not come with guaranteed outcomes.

That that's not the definition. Right? So we experiment to find out how does this work? And so if our experiment happens to be in the realm of, of, of the sexual, of touch, uh, of a particular kink dynamic, whatever it is, let's try this position. Let's, let's try this quality of touch or this implement. We might learn, oh, you know, that that really did it for me and I would like more of that.

Yes, please. Or we might come away and say, Hmm, that was not good for me and I don't ever want that again. And there's also a middle road, like, you know, some of that worked and I think if we did it this way next time, or if I coupled it with this. So if that is the attitude we come in with, we're experimenting, we're gonna see what the outcome is, we're gonna adapt and adjust.

Wow. Does that open up a lot of possibility? And wow, does that give us space to just. Like lay down the taking it personally. If, for instance, on my menu of touch, the two most polarizing touches generally speaking are tickling and pinching.

[00:54:47] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[00:54:48] Darshana: There's not, there's generally not a ton of gray area with those two.

It's like, you like it or you don't like it. So for instance, if I were to tickle someone and they're like, stop. I'm not gonna take that personally. It's not a reflection on me. I didn't do anything wrong. Assuming we hadn't already negotiated and they hadn't told me, don't tickle me. That would be a different story.

Right. But if we were doing the experiment and I'm like, oh, try this, try that. I tickle them and they're like, uh, that, that gives me the heebie-jeebies. Please don't do that again. Okay. Thank you. Like, why, why would my, like really listener, think about why my response would be anything other than that. What skin do I have in the game?

Do I want. To inflict something torturous on this person. I mean, you know, if hardcore, maybe that is your thing, and then maybe you have negotiated for consensual consent to do things that the person actually doesn't like. I mean, that's how some people play. Yes. But we're talking about a very consent based situation here, where we're being real thorough, real curious, knowing it's all an experiment.

There's no way to get it wrong. Learning that something is a no does not mean something went wrong. It actually means it went right. Oh, great. I now have this information clarity. Thank you.

[00:56:10] Dr. Nicole: Move on. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. Absolutely. And now we can dance together and now we know we're on the same page and we can keep going.

And so it's unpacking that long, long script that is reinforced by all of the media that things just flow together, you know? And which, which is. It's also a part of like a lot of rom-coms too in romance, even apart from the sex space, right? Of we just saw each other and we knew that we were destined and we never had any conversation about our value systems or our vision.

We just saw each other and it just sparked, right? And so we've, I think our slowly coming out of that culture on rom-coms, but the sexuality piece, right? We're still even slower coming out of that one to understand that the more we communicate, the better we can dance and be in flowed, because we know we can't read minds, right?

We know that. So that also means we cannot read what exactly is happening in the body. We need clear verbal consent, right? In these moments here. And so there's so much transformation when you do start to speak about these things. Because again, like we were saying, when the society is so repressed on these topics, right?

When you start to, uh, harness the language of Bureau erotic in this shame laden society, there is a level of power that you start to have in your life because you have tackled a really big mountain here in terms of shame, right? And so once you stand on that, you're like, oh, fuck no. I'm not gonna take that treatment over there.

Absolutely not. No, that does not feel good emotionally or in this job space or whatever it is for you, you get a voice that starts to be much louder.

[00:57:52] Darshana: Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Another thing that's coming to mind for me that goes like hand in hand with this is so you empower your voice. You, you begin to have a deeper embodied sense of, this is my yes, this is my, no, I like this.

I don't like that. Another stumbling block for many people is even once that clarity is felt. Opening up their mouth and speaking. The fear is I don't wanna ruin the flow, like, right. And so this is a great moment to talk about, and I mentioned this before, this notion of a sex escalator.

[00:58:33] Dr. Nicole: Sure.

[00:58:33] Darshana: That, that the, you know, you think about an escalator in a mall.

Do we even still have those at Vegas? They, they're in, I haven't been on one in a while in aircraft or something. They're there. Right? So you get on an escalator and your only option to get off is when it comes to that next level, right? That it's rising toward. We're, we're assuming it's an escalator that goes up.

So that's the approach that most of us take to sex. And here's why that is fraught and what it has to do with what we're talking about previously. It's fraught because it doesn't allow us to be in that beautiful ebbing flowing, undulating, rising, falling. This idea that we're chasing an orgasm and the only direction is up is what most of us have been acculturated to.

But a more orgasmic, a more ecstatic, a more, I would say just fucking satisfying way to be in your sexuality is to ride the waves. And just the way a wave in the ocean, it, it builds, it crests, it crashes, you know, and they come Again. That's the energy that you can be having in your sex there. There's not a finite scarce amount of, of turn on energy necessarily.

We can pause, we can back off, we can open up our mouth and say, you know, this isn't quite hitting the mark. How about we try X, Y, z? And that's another piece. It's like, if something isn't working, that does not have to mean everything comes to an end. If, if not this, then. I'm not really a yes to this. Could we try that?

Would that be interesting to you too? Like, so there's always opportunities for being in that dance of accelerating decelerating, you know, moving with a lot of friction and intensity. Then like maybe some stillness or something more subtle. There's pivoting from, we're doing this act now and, okay, we're done with that.

Let's try that one. I mean, and it could be, I, I don't know. I'll just give an example. As a vulva haver, like let's say you've been having some form of penetratively focused sex for a while and you're just getting a little tired, like a little tender. It happens. Yes. You know, especially if it's like rougher or more friction based.

If you need a break from that, take the break. You got a whole lot of body. You got things that you can do to your partner, potentially other things they could be doing with you to you. Like it doesn't have to stop. When one piece of the experience is a no in that moment.

[01:01:15] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:01:15] Darshana: And maybe it really is just a no in that moment and you want to circle back to it.

So I guess the thing I wanna impart there, we don't have to be so damn precious about it all. Like sex is, is the best sex that I've had and I've had a lot of sex. Like the, the best sex that I have had is dynamic. Mm-hmm. We are doing lots of different things. It's hours and hours long, and let me tell you that hours and hours long is never just intercourse.

Like, like that is not how that works, right? It's moving between different pace, different intensity, different activities, different forms of stimulation. Probably some bathroom breaks, some hydration breaks, some cuddle breaks, picking back up again. So, so I think we get very, there's a big scarcity feeling that if arousal begins to build, if intensity begins to build, that the only possibility is to ride that escalator.

And I really want you to hear me say, that is not true.

I'm not even being inconsiderate. People with penises who might struggle with their erections, I get that there's some subjectivity to that experience. You know, when we're talking about maintaining a hoped for state of arousal, that that's a slightly different subject matter. All things being equal. You can have this dynamism of, of varying the pace, varying the, the focus, varying the intensity and create a gorgeous experience.

Like it's, it's just so gratifying. Truly.

[01:02:58] Dr. Nicole: Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. I was the saying that was coming to mind for me was it's not about the destination, it's about the journey. Mm-hmm. Or if you keep thinking, I wanna get to the climax, I wanna get to, you're not enjoying all of the journey that is there.

And gosh, I just, I hope one of my biggest hopes too is that people like really release this, you know, when you're having sex for multiple hours, the importance of loop when you have sex for any amount of time. Actually, lemme just take that back. I was like, lube is my best friend. I just wanna release so much of the bind of like, especially as, uh, you know, a vulva owner that like, if I am not wet, you know, this pressure, this pressure that I must be so wet.

I put lube on every single. Time. I don't care about what? Yeah, go for it.

[01:03:44] Darshana: Can we like get, let's, let's, we gotta say a few things here. Yeah, go for it. Go for it. Okay. Lube for life. Yes. Hell yeah. So there is yes, a very harmful myth that a wet pussy is an aroused pussy and a dry pussy is not right. Not true.

Some bodies are more naturally inclined to lubricate than others you can be. And, and I'm gonna use a, uh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go for a slightly provocative example here that might disturb some people. So, little, little content warning. A little trigger warning, right? There are people who have been assaulted, right?

Who, who have, have absolutely not consented, and their body gets wet. Or their body was wet because that's their default state. Like I am someone who walks around fairly lubricated all the time. That is what my body does. I can't control that. It is now also true is that there are some, uh, some female bodies that dryness is, is a kind of chronic problem, and it's not indicative of a lack of arousal.

Mm-hmm. They actually are turned on and wanting, so correlating, wetness or dryness as, as like to the, to the absence or presence of someone's turn on is really just not cool. It's, it's limited. It's inaccurate.

[01:05:18] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:19] Darshana: Lube is everybody's friend. Marathon Sex are not. Yes. Lube is not only for postmenopausal women, lube is not a a crutch.

Lube is not a problem. It's not something to be afraid of. I would never masturbate without it. Right, exactly. I would never put a vibrator on my clit. I'm a, I generally use coconut oil. Sometimes I use Uber, lube or liquid. I'll throw out some brand names. Sure. Those are like the, the ones that I would recommend.

Sure. I really like that. SL Liquid has an organic line.

[01:05:53] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:05:54] Darshana: Case you're interested in recommendations. So you use that when you need it. Please use it if you're doing any anal play. Good Lord. Yeah. Jesus. What would you do with that? Oh, ow. Because, um, in case you're unaware, anuses are not self lubricating.

Right. So, so lube is here to help. Enjoy it, have fun with it. Maybe put a nice sex blanket down so you don't get your, your sheets and your mattress all like goopy or sticky or whatever. Mm-hmm. But it's not like this idea that, that a younger person doesn't need it or that it means something. Like just we need to let that go.

It makes everything better. And I'll give you my other pro tips. So what I also, in my practice, like I use organic fractionated coconut oil. Fractionated just means that it's processed to stay in liquid form and I have an oil warmer.

[01:06:47] Dr. Nicole: Nice.

[01:06:47] Darshana: Get yourself one of those. Nice. Seriously warm coconut. What? Nice.

Do you know how good that feels? And on any part of the body, you get to do your sexy massage, you get to have your gentle poke. Like, like this is about sensuality. So, so our fixation on orgasm as the destination, our fixation on the cock has to be hard. The pussy has to be wet. All this stuff is so arbitrary and it's robbing people of their pleasure.

It's putting pressure on something that is designed to be playful and creative and, and pleasurable, you know? So, so the, ah, I'm looking for my right word here. The, the takeaway that, that I would invite is to really get curious about what are these scripts, what are these beliefs that, that I am clinging to, probably pretty unconsciously.

Then you don't have to like, make yourself a horrible person if, you know, if you're like, oh shit, I'm, I'm doing this like. Look at it, interrogate it. Bring some critical analysis to the ideologies that you are clinging to and how those are actually impacting your experience, your partner's experience. And like I said at the start, about what my clients are, are often recognizing this will impact more than just your sex.

It will, when we let go of that fierce, tightly held goal orientation to your, to bring in the phrase you brought in, it's about the Destin, or rather, it's about the journey, not the destination. Right? Like, we're giving ourselves so much more space and, and, and space. Like, Hmm. Yeah, that feels nice. So, I mean, containment can too, like I, I'm a how do you feel it, you know, like, but, and in this case, I'm talking about an energetic spaciousness as well.

A permission. Mm-hmm. A freedom to be in that creative, experimental, beautiful, joyful, messy, sad, ecstatic, like all of it. The, the whole swirl. Right. And, and that's where we feel affirmed. You know, so many people, when we are having sex for a very, from a goal oriented place, the fixation on orgasm is because it is a, an altered state, even if, just for a few moments.

Sure. Right? And, and this is not something that most people who are being unconscious about their sex are gonna consciously come to on their own. But it's like, why, why am I so fixated on my orgasm? Oh, because for those few seconds, for that minute, for whatever, you know, like you get to transcend your ordinary state of consciousness.

Now I'm telling you. Believe me, please, like, take, take my decade of experience doing the work that I do. Like that instead of that being something that only lasts for a few seconds, when you stop having goal oriented sex and begin to have eroticism as play and begin to not just be on an escalator, but to, to ride the waves, you will be in that altered state of consciousness times a hundred.

It will last longer. You will go deeper. I promise you this. Mm-hmm. I watch it happen all the time. I, this is literally what I do for a living, you know? Right, right. It's a phenomenal thing.

[01:10:34] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, absolutely. It's calling to mind. One of my podcast guests I had had, who was also, um, a sex worker, Kathy and Jesse, who had said, then every breath becomes an orgasm.

Right? And that level of embodiment is something I continue to take more steps towards every day because yeah, when all of these scripts, all of these messages are going on in your head and you are having sex, it's taking too long. Am I what? Enough am I this? Am I that? Am I this? Am I that? You know, you're all up in your head and you're not in the body, which is where the sensation is happening, right?

When there's so much shame and you're masturbating underneath your sheets because you're afraid that someone's gonna, you know, see, which I was, gosh, something that I used to do, even out of Christianity. I'd live alone. Like I'd live completely alone in my own studio, and I'd still be under the sheets and it's like, like.

What is that? Right? So it's, it's really like, it's preventing you from learning your body and experiencing what is possible. And so, you know, and all that is connected like you're saying to the rest of the areas of your life. Because if you have a delicious meal and you just scarf it down, 'cause you're trying to finish it, you're not gonna taste it, right?

It's about actually slowing down to chew the food, to taste it on your tongue. This is where I'm thinking about the, um, the raisin mindfulness meditation, right? Where you like, for the listener who doesn't know, it's like this, this practice where you have a raisin, you like hold it in your finger, you feel it, then you put it on your tongue, you let it.

Like sit there, you chew it, you sit around. It's all about trying to not just immediately swallow it and essentially taste the experience. And so when we're all going orgasm, orgasm, orgasm, orgasm, right? You're not tasting the full meal to feel any of your body. And when you do start to taste more of that, like you're saying, that orgasm is deeper, more pleasurable, more full bodied, right?

There's so much more. And so, and I loved how you said like I wouldn't masturbate on my own without lube. That has been one of the most transformative practice practices is how do you fuck yourself, right? How do you fuck yourself? You pull some lube. Hmm. You figure it out, you take it slow. If you don't like something, you change it.

Right? And so I wish more people had that capacity, like that pleasure practice for themselves, a masturbation to realize what they like for themselves so that they can communicate it better for their partners. Right. That's a whole piece of this as well.

[01:12:49] Darshana: It's a huge one. And I'm gonna put in a plug, because I, I have an ebook about this.

I have guided meditations about how this, so come, come at me, y'all. Because many of us, what, what I wanna say here, like, let's bring in a little like psychoeducation too. Yeah. Like our, our neural pathways around orgasm and around masturbation. So, so you may have heard the saying that like, our biggest sex organ is between our ears, not between our thighs.

Right. This is true. It's, but what we, if, what I want folks to understand is. We lay down a neural pathway that gets very well worn. For instance, when as a whatever age and stage of life, you start masturbating for some of, for some people it's grinding, you know, grinding on a pillow, a piece of furniture.

Other people, it's, oh, you're in the shower or the bath. It's the stream of water. Some people only orgasm laying on their belly because that's the way that they did it from childhood, right? Others must have to be in x, y, z position. So what happens there is we've created this incredibly well worn path. I want you to, you know, think about a perfectly maintained trail through the woods, like that's that path.

Then what happens is the moment you wanna introduce a derivation from that, some novelty, try things differently, you have gone off that beautiful path and you are with a machete bush whacking through a dance. So why I like to use that example is a lot of people get very frustrated because when they do try to introduce something novel, it doesn't produce the same effect that you are conditioned to.

Folks get frustrated, they're like, well, that didn't work, so therefore I will never do it again. Because the expectation is it should instantaneously get you to where you wanna go. But just like you would not expect that bush whacking through the jungle to take the same amount of time as going down the well trodden path, this is what's happening as we are introducing novel experiences to our body, sexually speaking.

So that's one piece I wanna say. The other piece I wanna say is if you know that there is certain kind of stimulation or a certain position that has been present in your solo sex from time immemorial, and you're not including that in your partnered sex, right, and you're wondering why you're not satisfied.

That's the first place to look. And for many of us female bodied folks, it's called a vibrator. Mm-hmm. I can't tell you how many people are like, well, I masturbate and I can have an orgasm by myself, but I can't with my partner. And I'm like, okay. How? Tell me about how you masturbate. Well, I use my vibrator and I usually lay on my back and I do this.

It's like, okay. Do you bring your vibrator into the bedroom with your partner? No. Okay. So here's what I wanna say. First of all, I am a fan of vibrators and not everybody's cup of tea, right? Sure. Yeah. And it is not a better than I, I will not ascribe to, there's a right way and a wrong way. A better, a lesser if you are keyed, if you're, if, if you're like keyed to the frequency of vibrator.

Your body is accustomed to that intensity, and that degree of stimulation is pretty damn hard to replicate by anything that's not mechanical. So if you're wondering why partnered sex feels different, if you orgasm that maybe it's not as intense, maybe you don't climax. Like, and again, I, I wanna be careful to not have this turn into, and we must climax.

And we must orgasm because I'll be honest with you, I don't have peak climaxes in partnered sex nearly as often as I do in my solo sex. But what I do get to have is that like waves of pleasure that can go on for hours and alter my consciousness and leave me so glad that life exists. Mm-hmm. Right? So, you know, like they're distinct experiences, but you gotta, you get to, I don't wanna say, you gotta, you get to look at, oh, okay, well if this works for me over here in my solo experience.

And I'm not including or replicating that to some degree in my partnered experience, and it feels like something's missing there. Try bringing that element in and back to like fragile egos and things we were speaking of earlier. Right. You know, I, I understand. I I don't want to act like there, there, there's no empathy here.

I get that it can feel edgy. I get it. I'm not agreeing, but Right, right, right, right. That it can feel edgy, you know, if you've been, especially if like you're in an established dynamic with, with a partner and then all of a sudden it's like, okay, basically I get to cop to the fact that I'm not satisfied with what's been going on here and I want my vibrator.

And what if, what if they're not okay with this? What if he's not okay with it? You know, like usually Yep. Some relationships that really might be what you're working with. And if we are defaulting to an assumption that I hope is true for more of you than not. Who the person you're having sex with actually would like to know that you're enjoying yourself.

That they care about that, that they're not a sociopath. Right, right, right, right, right. Then again, have a conversation in a moment of neutrality and say, I listen to this podcast. This idea got put into my head that maybe the way that I stimulate myself being an absent, you know, part of our partner sex, you know, like maybe there's something for me to like bridge here.

I wanna bring my vibrator in. I feel a little nervous saying this to you. It feels vulnerable. You know, you don't have to do this perfectly. Like, like you, you can be in the awkward with your person. It's an incredible intimacy builder actually, when we can like, have that degree of vulnerability of like, oh, this is a hard thing for me to say and I'm doing it anyway.

Right. And then, like I said, I, my hope is that the vast majority of you listening, if you find yourself having that kind of conversation, that the person that you're having it with, or the people that you're having it with, that, that, again, like, that they, they care enough to say like, oh my God, thanks for telling me.

Wow. I, I get the awkward, okay. Like, yeah, let's, let's try this, let's, let's see what happens. Mm-hmm. You know? Again, experimenting. It's all an experiment, so, right.

[01:19:30] Dr. Nicole: It's play. It's play. It's play. Yeah. Yeah. And I love knowing the history too of, uh, vibrators in the medical field and how that used to be a me used to be a medical procedure that you could go into your doctor and have, you know, granted they were working on quote unquote hysteria, and there's a lot to that, that we could unpack in another episode, but back in the day, you could go to your doctor and be like, doctor, please help me.

I'm so overcome with emotions. And they would pull out a vibrator and give you that experience.

[01:19:59] Darshana: Deal with hysterical women in the Victorian age. Also, if you happen to find yourself in New York City, go to the sex museum. It's awesome because there, it'll walk you through that. Sex toys, literal, I mentioned the term since time immemorial before, literally it'll take you through the history of the sex toys and how they've been used.

They, we have been using things to enhance sex. Forever. Forever. It's not new. It's just there's no shame in this game. Yeah. And I, and I wish that, yeah, that, that we could just be more in our ease around that, like your personal choice. Again, like I am not, if, if you're not into vibrators, then don't be into vibrators.

Like it's totally okay if it's not your thing. But if you're somebody who is really curious or maybe it's something, like I said, that is part of your solo sex and you're not bringing it into your partnered sex, that's a missed opportunity that I, that I hope you'll consider taking advantage of,

[01:20:59] Dr. Nicole: right? Absolutely.

[01:21:00] Darshana: To really be a game changer for you. And last thing I'll say there, not all vibrators are created equal. Really they're not Nope. Sweetest moment. I had a client in from outta state doing like a multi-day immersion with me the other week. And we got to the point where I was like, okay, so did you bring your toys with you?

And she's like, yeah, I brought my vibrator. And I'm like, cool. I can't wait to see it. Like we can incorporate it. Yes. And I'm like, tell me how you use your vibrator. She's like, well, I just kind of like rub it on the outside. I'm like, okay, I can't wait to see. She pulls out a G-spot vibrator.

[01:21:32] Dr. Nicole: Ah.

[01:21:32] Darshana: Like a total like, and, and there's nothing wrong with the fact that she was using it externally.

Right. But she literally had no idea that this toy was designed with a particular purpose in mind. The dual purpose thing is awesome, you know? Right. Do. But there is such a vast range of what exists in the realm of sex toys, vibrators, and there are so many amazing sex shops that are very. Feminist and education focused and where the people who work there would be thrilled to talk you through things.

Like, one of my favorite things to do is take clients on field trips to the store. It's so fun. Like I get to be their personal tour guide and, and, and, 'cause there's a lot out there. So if, if you try one thing and it's not a great fit. Try something else like there, there's just a lot of possibility.

[01:22:28] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. And the joy of that, right? Finding the things that work for you because each one of those orgasms feels different. Each one of those toys feels different. And so the joy, again, the expansion of all the different capacities here, I hope that that's one of the main things that the listeners are taking away from this conversation.

You know, like there is a lot of things to unpack here and there will be for a lifetime around sexuality, especially in our, our world and our society with all these systems. And also what joy, what beauty, what. Pathway of exploration for the rest of your life to be in connection with this. There's just so much that you, you'll get to your deathbed and still have more that you could have explored.

Right. Like, that is so joyful for me.

[01:23:14] Darshana: It's endless. I, I mean, it, it's like, you know, I, I think you and I have that, that that common ground, that shared experience of, like, I, I call, I defined myself as an erotic explorer at the start.

[01:23:26] Dr. Nicole: Mm. I love that

[01:23:26] Darshana: as I introduced myself. Yeah. Because it's true. It's, it's, so I'm going to a party next weekend.

I mean, this will be, you know, whatever this is, I'm going to a party where there's a group of friends that rent out this private dungeon every so often, and it's got all these different setups, but it's a, it's a crew of people who like get really goofy and creative with their kink. It's, it's tons of fun.

And so we've got like a text thread going right now with like, who wants to do what And I sort, this group has shown up with like. The most bizarre, hilarious, like, it, it's just, it's endlessly creative. And your eroticism can include your sex back to where it began. Like we're, obviously, we've talked a ton about sex in this conversation, but it isn't limited to that alone.

You know, and, and you can have non-sexual kink and you can have sensuality that isn't sexual. Your creativity can channel into your art, into your activism. Like there's so many ways that this energy that, that infuses you, that animates you, that gets you lit up, can be channeled in this life. So yeah, have the orgasms have the pleasure, like I'm all for it.

And also see how tapping into this well of vitality within you really just makes you a more fulfilled whole person in every facet of your life. 'cause it's totally available.

[01:24:56] Dr. Nicole: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I really hope you have the best time at that party because I know that energy and it is a good time.

It's a good time to play and be in that pleasure, and it's so clear that I could talk to you for hours about all this content, and so I'm so grateful that we were able to have this conversation with the listeners. And so, yeah, I'm real. I'm really grateful.

[01:25:19] Darshana: Yep, this was delightful. I feel really grateful.

Thank you, Nicole.

[01:25:23] Dr. Nicole: Yeah, of course, of course. Well, before we go, there's a couple of things I'm gonna do with you. So the last thing that I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take a deep breath

and then I'm gonna see if there's anything else that you wanna share with the listeners. Otherwise, I have a closing question I'll ask you, and then I'll also hold space for you to plug all of your content.

[01:25:46] Darshana: The thing I wanna say is to anyone who feels. Alone. Mm-hmm. Or other, or lost or broken or overwhelmed inside of all of this.

You're not, you're not. There are people like Nicole, like myself, ample communities, ample resources where you can have these candid conversations where you can ask questions. So please don't stay stuck in your story that you're broken or, or you're by yourself with all this, or whatever might be going on for you.

Like, I hope if you take nothing else away, it's a sense that, that it is absolutely possible to connect around these topics and to dismantle, you know, the outdated stories that aren't really serving and write new ones that are rooted in your pleasure and your power.

[01:26:47] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. So beautifully said.

So beautifully said. I know past versions of myself would've started to cry at just that message right there. And so I, I trust in the ripples of your voice to have shared that with all of the listeners today. Yeah. Alright. The closing question that I have for you, the question I ask every guest on the show is, what is one thing that you wish other people knew was more normal?

[01:27:16] Darshana: Hmm. That's a question. One thing that I wish more people knew was normal is the book Come as You Are By Tell. Yeah. Um, I wish More, particularly more female body folks knew that it's really quite common for your desire to be responsive, which is to say that. Not all of us are just, even me. Like I do not walk around for me 24 7 even though I, I'm in this soup all the time.

Right. Like generally speaking, like I, I have spontaneous arousal some of the time, and mostly responsive, which is to say that there needs to be that set and setting, there needs to be something that stimulates me, that, that provokes me. And that could be everything from an evocative piece of music to my lover to dancing wildly to watching porn.

Like, I mean, there's so many ways that I can respond or, or, or sources that I can, you know, respond to. So I just wish more people knew, especially women again and females, like it's okay if you're not walking around constantly wanting sex. And that for many of us really are, are arousal or arises in that response to something that hits a particular note.

There's nothing wrong with that.

[01:28:46] Dr. Nicole: Mm-hmm.

[01:28:47] Darshana: It's, it's just, it's perfect learning about what you respond to. Right. And then cultivating more of that in your life now, that is your opportunity. Yes. The curiosity, because then we all, you know, we all have opportunity then to increase that. When I know what does it for me, I can call more of that in so.

[01:29:10] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely, absolutely. May every listener feel more normalized in that to be able to explore, to get curious and to play. And you've done so much of that in today's conversation to really create the space for that. And so I am so grateful for your expertise. I'm so grateful that you quit your corporate job to follow the path.

And I'm so grateful that I was able to have this conversation with you today. And I'm sure all of the listeners have fallen in love with you, so you have to plug all of your stuff so they can connect with you. Yeah.

[01:29:42] Darshana: Aw, yes. This is a genuine delight. And yes, please come hang out with me. Um, the best ways to find me, I have a free online community called gsm, and it is specifically for women and afab folks who wanna explore sex positive, kink, positive, queer, positive, pleasure, positive ways of doing life.

Amazing. Um, and it's got a ton of free content in it, so GSM. My YouTube channel is another source of a lot of free material and wisdom. And then if you wanna learn more and are interested in the possibility of working with me, I literally have people fly in from all over the world to do that. It's, you don't have to, I'm in Oakland, California, but you can be wherever you are, darna avila.com and, and come get on my email list or send a message.

Whatever you wanna do. I love. Hearing from people who are like, I heard you on this podcast. I'm like, cool. So reach out, say hey, and, and let's, let's keep growing together. Let's keep nurturing a culture of erotic wholeness together. Like that's the world I wanna be living in. So thanks for, for jumping on.

[01:30:53] Dr. Nicole: Absolutely. It's revolutionary. Truly pleasure is revolutionary. So thank you. So good. If you enjoy today's episode, then leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast, and head on over to modern anarchy podcast.com to get resources and learn more about all the things we talked about on today's episode.

I wanna thank you for tuning in, and I will see you all next week.