I'm Casey Tanner and I'm Camille Lewis, and this is safe word. Safe
word is sex therapy unhinged because instead of being a blank slate that's just here
to support you, we're telling you all the details on our own sex lives,
relationships, identities, and more. This isn't sex and it's not therapy,
but we are sex therapists and what you here today may excite you.
Each week we'd talk alot theme related to sex, relationships, gender and more.
This week we're answering your questions about what it's like to be sexual health
professionals with a very special guest, doctor Emily Morse, Doctor of Human Sexuality.
Emily Morris is on a mission to liberate conversation about sex and pleasure.
Emily has helped millions of people around the world navigate their sex lives. Her
candid conversations challenge cultural taboos, misinformation, and awkward sex talks to create a
future where people can deeply connect and embrace pleasure filled lives. Today, Sex
with Emily is the longest running sex and relationship podcast and an endeavor that Emily
has grown into a thriving media company. Learn more at Sex with Emily dot
com, or by following at Sex with Emily on Facebook, Instagram, and
Twitter. So Emily, we ask all of our guests this question. We're
wondering if you're willing to tell us if you have a safe word, or
if you were to have a safe word, what that safe word might be.
Yeah, I thought that you were going to ask this on pretty basic.
I liked us using the traffic signal. Yeah, that's to me.
I don't get a fancy in the moment when I'm in a heightened state of
arousal. I can remember red, I can remember green, I can remember
yellow. There you go. I feel like that's like, it's a classic.
It's a go to for a reason. So my boyfriend I joked that,
were like, how about seagulls. I'm like, when a seagulls that
we're going to work. So we do joke about it, but at the
end of the day, that's what we're doing, right, I got it.
I got it. The first question is why did you want to become
a sex educator slash therapist. It's a great question. I wanted to become
on because I always say research is mesearch, and so when I found there
was like a pain point in my life that I realized that sex was really
disappointing. When I went to find some answers to the questions I had about
why couldn't orgasm, Why couldn't sustain attraction to someone for very long? You
know, why my partner wasn't a wreck? All the questions that we often
have, they're really word any sources to go to. Almost twenty years ago
that I found that we're useful, that we're easily accessible. So I started
my journey because I was trying to help myself. Then I realized soon after
that it was going to help so many other people. So that was the
journey. And now I realized, you know, keeps you going because I
realized we all need this help many of us do. It's always personal,
right, it is it is. And I also have been in therapy like
pretty much my whole life. I came from a very like pro therapy background,
and so I just think it's it's crucial that we all need therapy,
whether it's whether whatever kind of therapy we need, I think we all bet
if it's most people on the planet to do some internal work. Do you
ever find that when you're choosing whatever whether it's running a chapter of your book
or choosing a topic for your own podcasts that you ever are selecting topics based
on the thing that you most sort of need to be looking into for yourself.
It's something I definitely can relate to. Yeah, No, it's a
great question, Casey, because I feel like early on it was because I
was such a I would feel like I was a guinea pig, and I
was everything was new to be, like this is my first sex party,
my first threesome, my first free sex toy, you know, and I
was going off on everything. And then it kind of has taken all these
turns over the years where then it became more about like what is the theme
that my listeners want to know? What are the questions? Like you,
I get so many questions in DM, so it's kind of toys in term.
But I think at the end of the day, when I can't say
to that is that if I'm truly passionate about and learning, that that's going
to come through and everything that I do, right, and it's really interesting
to me exactly. And that's the other thing. Right, if it's usually
if it's just even if it's a party of one like, even if it's
you want to know the information, there will be somebody else who it's going
to serve. Can yell, I don't know your answer to this question.
Yeah, why did you become a sex therapist? Well, when I was
thinking about going into therapy, I knew that I wanted to talk about identity
and just kind of like how who we are affects our lives and how we
see the world. And then I was like, what could I do and
talk about that I wouldn't get tired of or burnt out on? And I
was like, I can talk about sex all day, and I can go
at it from a different angle depending on what the client wants to talk about,
and I can. There's so many different niches within it that all excite
me. So that really I was like, what am I not going to
get bored of? So that's why I'm here? What about you, Casey?
Yeah, so only I don't know if you know this, but I
grew up and went to school become a pastor. So I was teaching sex
education on the other side of this coin, teaching people not to have sex,
teaching people that sex was bad, all sorts of things, and I
felt the weight of that, and it showed up in my mental health in
all kinds of ways. So, in a similar vein to research is me
search, my recovery process necessitated undoing that and redoing that. And as I
readed it for myself and saw that it of course it changed my sex life,
but it changed everything else too, I had to I had to ensure
that there was a way other people were also getting the opportunity to have that
healing process. Wow. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I'm
sure that you have been able to help so many people who listen to your
show who are going through a similar It's a lot of it is undoing right
before you can even help people with a position or a tip. It's like,
where are you coming from? What your what's your psychology behind this?
What were the messages you learn? How do we undo? Redo? Absolutely?
I totally agree. Think a lot of what I talk about is how
great sex education actually moves backwards because so many of us were born with an
innate sense of play and spontaneity and doing things without filtering it through a lens
if should we do this as this right or wrong? And so it's when
you say I'm learning it's on learning that information, but it's almost rewinding back
to that part of ourselves we could access in childhood that we were then conditioned
out of the part of us that wasn't even yet sexual but was so in
touch with pleasure. And so I'm totally with you on that. We do
like that lens on learning, rewiring, redoing, starting, starting again every
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the safe Word Instagram link tree. That's a good segue. Actually, Emily,
what would you go back and tell your younger self about sex if you
got the chance, and it could be any age, I would tell myself
to masturbate more so good. I would say, take a mirror, take
a look, and put your hands on your own pants and get curious.
Become an expert in your own body. I think that would have really changed
my trajectory of years of disappointing sex, faking orgasms. Yeah, that's I
think that's the main thing, because and then from there I would have realized
I probably wouldn't have had as much performative sex, and I wouldn't have prioritized
my partner's pleasure over my own as much if I knew that my pleasure was
right here and so accessible. But since I didn't know, and I kept
thinking, well, I know nothing, but apparently my partner probably does because
I didn't know, and I was always much like I always was kind of
the person like I. You know, I think there's two kinds of people
to people think they know everything and who realized that they don't know anything in
life's journey and you're always learning. Maybe there's there's probably a third category in
there, but I feel like I'm always the one who's like I have so
much more to learn. I'm always a student, you know. So that's
kind of my mentality is like we can all learn from each other. I'm
never like I'm the expert and I know everything. I'm so open. So
my default was like, well, I this isn't coming easily to me orgasm
and pleasure and munication about sex, So my partner must know. Come to
find out. Zooming back twenty years, You're like, they don't know either.
No one knows anything. So put your hands down your own pants.
I want that on like a T shirt absolutely, or something that's brilliant.
Love it a banner, pantn I wass think a billboard? Can we have
some billboards in Lax. I'm like, let's put it on on Sunset Boulevard,
on a billboard. I love it. What about you? What were
some of the things that you would redo, relert or yeah, that you
would tell your younger self. I think I would tell myself let them spend
the time on you. There were so many times that I said to partners,
that's enough, you've spent enough time. I've taken up too much space.
Not because they ever were complaining always because I was counting in my head.
I mean I was I was counting down the minutes until it was impossible
that they were still enjoying my body. And so just believe them. Maybe
that's it. Believe them when they say they like going down on you,
I mean to just not to put too fine a point on it. Believe
them when they say they like what they're doing, and let them do it.
And maybe I wouldn't have had to wait until I was in my mid
twenties to have my first orgasm. That's a really good one. I used
to think about, like the blinking clock. I'd like, look over,
it's a part to go down. I mean, I'm like the red line,
like it's been ten minutes, it's been twelve minutes. Okay, okay,
this is taking too long. You know. Yeah, I totally could
relate. Yeah, I'd have I'd have like a TV show on in the
background, and I would just recognize when an episode was turning over and I
was like, oh my gosh, it's been three episodes, like of Parks
and resasm. It's good, you can meal um. I think that I
would be I would tell my younger self that it's okay to end sex when
I stop enjoying it, and not even like in a way that I felt
like I was being like untrue to myself. But I think that when I
would get bored, or when I would be like, you know what,
this isn't feeling good to me anymore, or this is not feeling pleasurable to
me, or if I realized that like an orgasm wasn't going to happen for
me, or and it started to feel like uncomfortable, and I wish that
I would just be like, you know what, it's all right to be
like, hey, I've had enough. It's been great, but we need
to stop. We need to pause, we need to recalibrate, something like
that. Because I think that my like push through mentality an accomplishment, achievement
has been a driver. So it's like, all right, I could do
this for probably twenty more minutes. It's like I'm gonna be at pain or
this for what or to what end? So I think that that's what I
would tell myself, yoh, so relatable, and what good messages are we
were listening, like I used to think it wasn't okay to stop sex.
I was right the polite thing to do, Like you go to someone's house
for dinner, like you have to like stay through dessert. Right, if
you're having sex with someone, you can't stop the sex if it's already started,
because it's unfair. Yeah, you realize, like, no, like
we are collaborating on this event. If I want to leave, if I
want to leave the party or stop the party or go to the bathroom,
like it's all okay. Yeah, absolutely absolutely. Why wouldn't you feel,
at least when you were younger, that you needed to push through when white
supremacist, ableist, capitalist messaging is let's just lie to ourselves about how much
we can tolerate, and so of course that would show up in our sex
lives. We wouldn't We would lie to ourselves and others about how much we
can tolerate, because how much we can tolerate, supposedly is the thing that
makes us polite or good or yeah the good party guest. Yeah, exactly,
because if there's going to be a sound reward for me at the end
of it, when it's like there literally was not, Yeah, the opposite.
All right, Well, moving right along, our next question says,
are you ever tempted to sex educate or be a sex therapist to your partner
or partners of course, way too much. Oh my god, I always
do I mean more like a therapist because the sex stuff I don't know.
I guess it's always do. It's all to me. It's all commingled like.
But yeah, all the time, to the point where I'm like,
now learning all the you know again, don't you think that you teach what
you need to learn? And it's not just because I know all the things.
I mean that every moment I'm exsessing it perfectly and I'm the perfect partner
at the right time. So sometimes i find that I'm over therapizing and I'll
say, I'm learning to say, would you like advice right now? Or
would you like me to listen? What do you will kind of support you
looking for right now? I really try to remember doing that before I'm prescribing
next steps for him when he's on asking, I do that, And yeah,
definitely theory we make it. What I've learned is that this is a
in my relationship. That's the sex theory part of it. We're at it
together. And again, I think that's what I think that I came from
the mindset earlier on that it was before I you know, when it studied
sex that it was like about I took it on myself, like I have
to be the arbitrar of great sex. I have to fix it all.
But when you realize that sex is a true collaboration, that we're in this
together, So what do you want? What do I want? Like I
literally have a shared note my partner. I have shared note on our phone
about like all the sex things you want to try and what we find had
what we want to do, Like we went away for a long weekend and
we're like, okay, what should we do? Like which toys be packing?
Which lub? Like it's fun. It's like I always try to tell
you you guys do tell people as well. You both share this in your
show that it's like once you get over the hump of talk about sex,
the fear and the shame and the trauma on the stress, it actually becomes
just as fun as planning your summification or where you're going to go to eat
dinner tonight. It's like, what are we gonna do for sex? Right?
And then we troubleshoot along the way, like I have pain tonight.
I have a stomach ache. This toy isn't charged um or our loubere.
I don't want a penetration, but can we make out for a bit?
Like we are so we just nail it, like are we having sex?
Are we not? Let's so to me, um, yes, I have
to work on probably therapizing everyone around me. And then yeah, definitely by
partner, I think that sex is with this particular partner, my privorty partner.
It's kind of flipped over to this really beautiful collaboration where I think that
we're both on the same page when it comes to our wants and needs sexually.
M that sounds so great And also like that therapizing is working and it
is working to your benefit, because how wonderful is it to be over,
like you said, the trauma, stress and shame and to be in a
place where you're like, let's just talk about this as easy as it would
be to plan dinner or what we're going to do for the weekend. And
I think that getting over that hump is like such a beautiful place to be.
So it's really good. What about you, what about the both of
you in your if you want to share that, how does it yeah,
what does it local show up for you and your relationship? This is a
one hundred percent been a thing in my past relationships and my current relationship with
mal I actually have been dealing with really craving for her to show up a
little bit more in this way. And I think where that's coming from is
a place of being like, I give so much of myself in this way
to other people through my work, and I'm often craving the ability to actually
be a learner in the area of sex, which of course is a really
unfair expectation for my partner, who is not a sex therapist and not a
sex Yeah, it's it's it's this fantasy I have somebody, you know,
will still take care of me in this way, and of course she takes
care of me in a million different ways. So I think right now my
particular struggle is less wanting to therapize her and more like, wait a second,
who's gonna who's gonna give me insight? Not that I don't have plenty
to learn, but I'm sure you both know the further into this field you
get, the harder it is to find your own therapist. I am educating
my own therapist around the topic of sex, because well, first off,
I have a sis dude as a therapist, so that's on me. But
also like he's not a sex therapist. So I think more than anything,
I'm craving I'm craving being the learner more lately because I'm a little bit tired.
Yeah that makes sense. Yeah, that does absolutely make sense. So
good that you you know that about yourself. Maybe you and your partner can
like pinpoint areas that you want to learn specifically. Yeah, yeah, area
sex. You could be like, this is a good poy area where I
think maybe we could work together collaborate on. So I love that. I
think she would like Hobbly. I'm sure she wants to show up. Would
be the best lover to you, right, I think they all do.
She does. Yeah, I mean I feel like I struggle to oscillate between
my rules as like a sex therapist and then like a partner or dating,
and so I think that I'm always ready to be like, well, why
don't we discuss that a little bit more? Well, why don't you tell
me what's coming up for you now? And I'm like sometimes I'm like I
don't same with you, Casey, like I'm like, I don't want to
really talk like a therapist or think like a therapist, but it is now
how I think it is now how I talk, so you can't kind of
it's kind of hard to parse it out truly, which I think is better
than the alternative of like steamrolling stating your own opinions just before someone's ready for
it. So, after we've talked a little bit about partners, the next
question is do your partners ever ask you to keep them a secret? And
I might even expand this too, is what is the process of boundary setting
with partners when you are public facing around a topic like sex. Still,
it's a really good question. Over the time, I actually have been pretty
private about my sex life over the last twenty years of doing this, So
if anything, I think I've been more, I haven't showed up. Maybe
I've had a few of this is everything I got on Instagram. Maybe I've
had like two and twenty years that I've labeled and been like this is my
partner um. But I usually it's funny because early on I'd be like,
I want to change your name, don't worry, like I'll talk about you.
But I'm because I've never been that person's like, let me wake up
in the morning and talk about I've always been come from a place of like,
you know, just wanting to be a good partner to my friends,
to to my my staff, my coworkers and everything. So, um,
it hasn't really been a thing. I think I've sort of been able to
walk the line of kind of being fair to everybody because again, when I
think about, like what, because most of my work has been through the
through the podcast, is that, um, through sex with on my platform
has been like what if I want to share something? It was never about
me, like, oh look at this crazy thing. It's always been a
place of education. What's true? May to the lesson I'm talking about today,
Like how could my experience help the listeners? So does it matter it
was a guy from last night or from six years ago? Could I be
like, Okay, I'm going to change your name in your age and where
you are because really, just this, the reason I'm sharing the information is
from a place that's going to be useful to everyone, not just because I'm
tuning my own horn. Yeah, so that's made a lot easier because it
doesn't really matter who my partner is, right like it, so it was
like never really like they weren't really coming along for it. That's really cool
to hear. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. I think,
well, I'm single, so I think a lot of the stories or things
that I share are like naturally going to be anonymous because I'm not like seriously
dating anybody right now. But I think that when I think about my privacy,
it's like very sacred to me. Like I feel like even if I
were to start dating somebody, like they're not going to be I'm not the
type to be like put somebody right on Instagram. I'm like, this has
got to be we gotta be a long way into this because I feel really
private in general, and I think maybe that's like the scorpio aspect of me,
Like I don't know about cover it, but I think that like I
have and I've also the first podcast that I ever guessed on, I talked
about my first sexual relationship with my then boyfriend and I was like saying how
it wasn't very good at first, and he was so angry at me afterward
and was like, I can't believe you said this, and I was just
like, I didn't say your name. I didn't say anything about this.
I said that it was like a bad first sex experience. And then but
and then after that, I was like, Okay, fuck it, I'm
not going to say anything about anybody ever again. But now, like I
feel, I feel like people would I would want to give get permission from
somebody or get kind of like have the conversation and be like, I'm I
want to name you by name. I think it'll take me a long time
to get there. I like. I like the anonymity, I think,
but I think that I would definitely have that conversation beforehand. But otherwise I'll
talk about anything. I don't really care. Yeah, if people can't trace
them again, if you change the names, you change their ages, locations.
I did it all the time. Yeah, And he was like,
because it all comes together too again, you're trying to help people, all
right, Does it doesn't really matter who it is, right, Like,
if it's a story or it's a lesson, it doesn't. And I think
that there's just like an assumption that like somebody is going to do all of
this like spy work to figure out who you are and then say something like
in what there's nothing that's going to come from this other than somebody's going to
relate to this and understand what I'm talking about and feel better. So I
also feel like that first boyfriend was the type of person too that even if
it had just been the two of you in a room and you were giving
very reasonable feedback about how sex felt for you, he probably would have been
angry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it seems like not a you problem.
So this question is what porn do you watch that doesn't give you the
ick after you come? So they're a porn that makes you feel good or
neutral after you're finished. God, I think most of the porn I watch
is, you know, we watch, oh God, a little bit of
everything, a little bit more like kinky, more bondage more, all different
genders, all different experiences. I feel like most the porn true, like
I started watching like Erica Lust early on, and like a lot of ethical
porn that's made more from the female gaze, you know. So I feel
like I kind of know how to steer clear of it. Now, what
about what about you? What about what about you? Guys? I feel
like I'm you know again, we do this? Start about I don't I
don't think anymore. I used yeah, I feel like I feel like sometimes
I sometimes I do it, but that was not the question, so I
don't have to share what that is. But I will say what I don't
make ground. And what I've recently been watching is like threesomes with two men,
and I really have enjoyed that, and I'm just like it's I think
it's really it's really fun and really pleasurable or like um but big like big
group sex like at a party or something that I'd like to watch that porn
sometimes and I'm like cool or something afterward. What about you, Casey M.
I've recently gotten into amateur porn, porn made by people, not necessarily,
but the kind of been into is porn made by people who are in
real sexual or other kinds of relationships with one another, who are just choosing
to do this because it is exciting for them. Promise this is not a
sponsor for this podcast, but Cheeks the platform actually has like a really good
array of this kind of porn, and what I love about it is the
scenes that it portrays are so everyday life. It's not again not like sometimes
I actually enjoy you know, role playing, but watching role play poor in
between, like a step mom and a stepson because it's weird and the power
dynamics are cool, whatever. But what I love about this is it's like
somebody gets home from work, the other partner shuts their laptop. It's an
interaction that I've had a million times in my own home, and so it
kind of removes the idea that this is this ethereal thing that that I'll never
be able to reach, or that I have to put on a different hat
to engage with it. It's me right now because it's a couple that you
know, probably lives four doors down. So I love that kind of ship.
Emily, do you feel pressure in your own life to have either consistent
sex or exciting sex or good sex whatever that means. I have? Yeah,
I do, let's see. But it's funny, it's trance. It's
changed over the years, I think I do. I'm like, oh god,
I'm the I'm the expert, you know, but sometimes I'm like yeah,
but sometimes you know, you go to like a great chef, right,
you go to ah whoever is home ons andimes like just you just sometimes
you just you know, you have to make like a soup flay every night,
and like you know, like a six course meal, and sometimes you
just want to mutually masturbate and fall asleep, and it's not always about that,
right, So I I think I have but I talk about it a
lot with my with my with my partner. So I think in the past,
the first time I'm with someone, I'm like because mostly I haven't been
in I've been been in like a study. I've been more like open,
and I've gone through all the iterations of relationships, and I always felt like,
Okay, there's pressure, I gotta go, I gotta you know,
So I have felt that. But also I think I have the ability once
I'm with someone and I'm present, that's the one I'm able able to turn
it off and be much more embodied. And I think most of my experiences
have been pretty more positive than not since this has been in my career.
And I think before that I always did confident because I'm like, I am
performing, so I know it's good. I can tell. So yeah,
I don't. I don't have that pressure as much anymore. I know that
sex even for and I don't you guys feel that you probably feel this too,
that even as sex educators, you know, like I said, just
because you're chef sometimes you want to Mike way of a dinner, or you're
a sex educator, doesn't mean that you always got to bring it right.
So so I always feel like I know enough to know that. Like,
it doesn't mean that we're perfect. It doesn't mean we're actually all the time
we have. It doesn't mean like I have a super high lobido. I'm
always wet and ready to go at the drop of a hat because it's what
I study. Because it's what I study and what I know, I give
myself permission to be in my body. Yeah. I mean, if if
research is mesearch, then none of us chose this field because we were the
best at sex in the world, right. We chose it because we were
like, I know, I need help, and that's how I felt,
and that's how I still feel. I definitely have dealt with some versions of
sex therapist imposter syndrome. If I've gone a certain amount of time without sex,
I'll even sometimes have the thought like what what would these clients think about
me? Which you know they wouldn't think anything, probably, But yeah,
of course I judge myself sometimes I think like you, Emily, when I'm
when I'm being kind to myself. On my best days, I can say
to myself and say to my partner like, sex is not a performance.
Exciting sex is impossible to have all of the time. Relationships and energy within
relationships change. So I think I have compassion for myself, but I feel,
maybe I feel emily like I'm still moving in the direction that you described.
I'm still I'm still working on giving myself some of the permission. That
it sounds like you're more practiced at giving yourself a journey. Well that's good,
it's a practice. Good. Yeah, good, it is because that
imposter symptom is real. And that's the other thing is having realists that it
doesn't really go away. You just started to monitor recognize it and say hello,
hello there right, yep, there you are again? Yeah, can
me or what about you? Yeah? I think I definitely have felt the
pressure or like because I'm not in a relationship like dating casually or something and
telling people this and they're like, oh, well, you must blank you
know, like you must be really experience, really practiced. You must know
everything about shabari, you must know everything about kick, you must everything about
sex parties. And I'm like, like, and I think that that part
will sometimes have like the imposter syndrome or be like yeah, like I'm about
to do all the gymnastics in this bedroom or whatever, or other times I'm
like yeah, And it just means that I'm a'm knowledgeable about this topic in
a way, but it doesn't really mean that I'm an expert on what would
happen in our dynamics. So we still have to talk about it. We
still have to go over things that we're into and not into. So it
doesn't just mean it's a free for all, because I think that that is
what it can be interpreted as. It's like, oh, so you must
be like down for whatever, and it's just like what, No, it
doesn't mean that at all. It means that you know that you know what
the options are on the table, but it doesn't mean they have to do
it all right. Just it's really so much of it is right about communication.
Yeah, and that I know my limits and I know what my curiosities
are and I can explore them. But I don't have to just be like,
yeah, whatever you want, whatever fucking hole you want to put whatever
in, I'm good like no, But that's the pressure, right that you
could feel being with a new partner like either they think I want to be
down with everything and yep, and you're like, am I down for everything?
Is that what it means? So I think that you cause of to
reevaluate what it means right in our in our field too. I don't know
if y'all are familiar with Serando Jay Brown's work. I think they just wrote
the book Refusing Compulsory Sexuality, But it's a conversation that I think is relatively
new in this space, and it's it's blowing my mind. I mean,
even just thinking what is the scale on which I've been judging my sex life
And what if instead of the assumption being that a good sex life was it
was one where there's regular sex happening. What if it was having exactly the
sex that we want to have when we want to have it. And maybe
sometimes that's none at all, and maybe sometimes, maybe for a decade,
it's none at all. And so that's really been blowing my mind and I'm
trying to I'm so far from embodying that I think I could logically wrap my
head around it. But I would love I'd love to have the opportunity or
the permission to actually ask the ask and answer the question for myself of what
would my sex life look like if I'd never been taught that you're supposed to
have sex once a week, or you're supposed to or sex is supposed to
look x way like. I don't know if I'll ever be able to answer
that question because obviously can't go back in time. But compulsory sexuality, really,
I think it's fucked us all up. That is, so that's so
interesting. That's the book it's called called Compulsory sexual Yeah, it's called Refusing
Compulsory Sexuality. I believe that the author's on the ACE spectrum, and so
it's coming from a perspective of Yeah, I think inclusivity for ACE folks.
But also what if being sexual wasn't the part of the intrinsic definition of what
it meant to be a healthy human being? And how would we understand it
differently? Yeah, what would our urges be? What would what would we
see? Right, we obviously would see it beyond creation, which is what
we're mostly told, like what part of it is like alogical learnings and what
part of it is the biological urges? That's so interesting, Yeah, because
Yeah, it's fascinating a lot to think about there writing it down Emily,
whether it's on your podcast or on social media, how do you balance creating
popular content with content that maybe has more of an impact but isn't necessarily going
to be the high performing topic or high performing content. It's a great question.
I mean, I've been through so many different iterations of this, and
I think it probably wasn't until the last few years that I've been it's been
working on the book. Then I was just like, Okay, well,
what's working because I don't know what, like what are some of the best
things that I've been working But I think, let's see, it's you know
that I've kind of been like, okay, like I know that these shows
and these topics work. But really, I think I've always let the audience
dictate what the shows are about. Honestly, until very recently, when I
just wasn't doing as many shows. I feel like, because I did a
call in show for so long, it's like, what are people calling about?
What do they want to hear about? And but I also balanced,
I'm like, I, no, no one wants a safe sex show,
and no one wants talking to your kids about masturbation show, and people aren't
like clamoring for the you know, um yeah, I think it would be
like the safe sex or even the you know, even open relationships. At
least in my audience, names are like I don't want to talk about that,
or but I think I know that it's it's it's important, so I
just sort of don't. Really, I'm at the point where I don't.
I never really looked at numbers either until I really did this from a very
like heart place, Like, looking back on it, I probably would have
things would have been very different I had I had more of a business mindset
around my brand or my show. So I think I was always sort of
going I mean, it started out at the pulse of what I thought was
interesting, and then realized that people were coming along with me on this journey
of learning and learned learning, and then it kind of turned into well people
were asking, right, And then I was as I do my work,
I try to bring more work into the you know, my work and things
I'm learning into the show. Like as I became more embodied, I brought
in more embodiment people. As I studied breathwork, I brought in my breath
work coaches, as I did trauma work, I brought in my trauma therapist
as I learned more about my sexual So I try to bring my like if
I go back, which would be like horrid toleist of my first shows from
twenty years ago, but it's definitely been a journey of my own exploration that
I think that, like a lot of my listeners have come along with me.
So to answer that, like, it's still a business and I want
to, you know, be able to do what I love, but I
think it's just as a duty of what I do, the responsibility I have
of education people, Like, I know it's a disservice to just do blowjob
anal and oral shows every day, right, Like no, right exactly,
but that's by the end of the day. People want an oral sex show.
They want to know about orgasms, and I could do that. There's
many different ways to slice that, but I think it's important to also bring
in content that is educated, also educational and formative and hopefully entertaining. So
people are going to listen, how do you do how do you think that
you? Oh, for me, might that's most relevant for you? Okay?
Okay, yeah, I was I was thinking about what you were saying,
Emily, and and how much of a gift I It sounds like it
might have been that you weren't thinking about it from such a business mindset in
those early days, and I relate to that, and I certainly think about
it from a business perspective now because our social media supports the livelihoods of thirty
therapists who work at the Expansive Group, so I have to think like like
a business person. But when I started the account, it was it was
a side project. Now we have a team of educators who write for the
page, and we have this conversation quite often because we believe in talking about
the intersection of sex and race, and we believe in talking about identities that
less than one percent of the population hold. And we know that when we
do that, we can predict much lower analytics. And that hasn't stopped us
from writing about it and doing it. But it's hard. It sometimes is
tempting to kind of push that to the side in favor of performing because it's
predictably performs low. So these are hard decisions and I am often walking a
line between you know, this is something important to speak about on the page
and there is the reality that you know, there's there's a there's livelihoods at
stake with the performance of this page now, and so it's tricky. Yeah,
I feel that. I feel like as we were talking, it was
like, I feel like I experience it's like in my own way in my
page as I'm trying to grow it of being like, well, what do
people want to hear? What do people care about? And being like the
thing that I think it's important, this is interesting. It's like it's not
as silacious right as like blow jobs are anal It's like, okay, well
how to balance that? And then I get stuck and then I just don't
write anything. So I was like, oh, fuck it all right,
Well I can write about three songs I guess as people who want to hear
about that. But maybe Camille, this is sort of like one possible path
for you is what if? What if you could set that aside a little
bit and be like, because Camille, you are so fucking interesting, Like
when when we're going out to dinner and you're not thinking about your audience.
Everything you say is so fascinating to me, and obviously what you're writing about
is fascinating. Too, But I just feel like maybe you could, maybe
you could just be like, fuck, fuck what they want to hear.
They want me, they want whatever I want have to say right now,
and I think it actually tends to be true. Oh okay, I think
so too. I think that that's that's a great point, is that the
more you lead into what you actually want to do with passion, but your
listeners and your audience are going to follow you because they want you. It's
not I've I've definitely had that. Like you realize that they used to hearing
your voice and your advice and your comfort, and you're going to go along
with You might not be as many people, but as long as you're true
to yourself, I think that at the end of the day, like the
people respect you for that and they want that, and they feel the authenticity
and the heart and the passion. I feel good. This is a wonderful
conversation. And you've been listening to your podcast and it's you guys have such
a such a wonderful dynamic together. So I think it's great to know about
what you're both doing and to be connected. So yeah, thanks for having
me. This has been wonderful. Emily is there anything that you want to
plug or tell us about. I'm really yeah, thank you for asking.
I'm really excited about. Well, my podcast I've been doing for almost twenty
years. It's called Sex with Emily, available on all platforms. But the
thing I'm most passion about is my book, which is coming out June thirteenth,
and oh, thank you. I know if a pre order now.
It's called Smart Sex. Have to Boost your Sex i Q and Own your
Pleasure. And in writing the book, you know, WHICHI was like,
Okay, here's all my latest and greatest tip. So then I realized,
like people just want to quick fix for things, and I really came up
with this, uh, these five pillars of Sex i Q and that that
sex isn't just it's a new paradigm for thinking about sex, education and sexual
health and wellness. So I really think it's going to help people shift and
the way they think about sex and also help themselves answer their own questions.
So it sort of runs through a sort of a yeah, it just gives
people a new paradigm, a new framework for thinking about sex, and it
is of my greatest and latest tips as well. Congratulations and we can't wait
to read it. Thank you so much. Yeah, you can pre order
it now. This week's safe word is actually a safe gesture and it's snapping
fingers from Ian, which I like. Okay. That safe Word assocted by
Casey Tanner and Kemmil Lewis and it's produced by coordinator et Townsend. Our themes
song is written and performed by Emma Jane and Toria Rainey. To support the
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to podcasts. Every other week we put a question box out on Instagram,
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submit long form questions in writing or your own voice, go to the Safe
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We'll be back in two weeks with our very own Yaz Harris on a new
episode of Safe Word