Reinventing Sex - Navigating Intimacy Through Change, Aging, and Illness with Jessa Zimmerman
Freya Graf:
This program is brought to you by Pussy Magnets. Welcome. Welcome, my lovely lumps, or should I say lovely labs? I'm so thrilled to have you here in the labia lounge. We're gonna yarn about all things sexuality, womanhood, relationships, intimacy, holistic health, and everything in between. Your legs. Oh. Can't help myself. Anyway, we're gonna have vag loads of real chats with real people about real shit.
Freya Graf:
So buckle up. You're about to receive the sex ed that you never had and have a bloody good laugh while you're at it. Before we dive in, I'd like to respectfully acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which I'm recording this, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation. It's an absolute privilege to be living and creating dope podcast content in Naarm, and I pay respect to their elders past, present and emerging. Now, if you're all ready, let's flap and do this. Oh my god. Is there such thing as too many vagina jokes in the one intro? Whatever. It's my podcast.
Freya Graf:
I'm leaving it in. Hey gang. Just before we jump into this episode, I wanted to offer you an opportunity to access my new mini course for free before I start charging for it in future. It's for people with vulvas and it's quick to complete. It's all about demystifying the female body and pleasure anatomy and getting some basic fundamentals to understand your body better. It's called Pussy Pleasure Secrets, Your Roadmap to Bedroom Bliss. You can grab it on the freebies page of my website or in the show notes. It's a great little free resource to kind of dip your toe in or act as a bit of a taster for my work.
Freya Graf:
So if you've ever been curious about this sort of thing and you just don't know where to start or you want a really quick, easy, accessible, non threatening way to get the ball rolling and start working on this stuff, this is a great place to start. Hello, hello, my lovely lumps. Welcome back to the lounge. Today, I've got a guest returning, and I must say, this guest the last episode we did a couple of years ago is hands down by by so far the the most popular episode I've ever done. So it was an episode with Jessa Zimmerman about desire, discrepancy, and having a different libido or desire level to your partner. That's literally the most popular episode I've ever done in a 55 episodes over three years by, like, a couple of thousand listens. So if you haven't heard that one, it's obviously a goodie. There's some social proof behind that, so go check it out.
Freya Graf:
But today, I've got Jessa back to talk about something a little bit different. There'll be some overlap, of course, but we're gonna discuss how to reinvent sex when there is changes happening either physiologically or energetically or emotionally when it comes to aging, when it comes to there being challenges like sexual dysfunction or illness, and, you know, maybe give some practical tips and approaches about how to reframe and reinvent the way we tackle our intimate lives when these things start to impact, you know, our time in the bedroom. So if this is you, if this is someone close to you, if this is something that you see on the horizon, which it basically is for all of us, at some point, we will definitely be confronted with, you know, whether it be an illness or an injury or a sexual dysfunction or just downright, you know, commonplace aging, this is something that will be really useful to have in your back pocket and just start to mull over and think about or send to a friend. So without further ado, I'll introduce Jessa again in case you don't remember from our last episode. She's a certified sex therapist and couples counselor. She specializes in helping couples who have a good relationship, but who are avoiding sex because it's become stressful, negative, disappointing, or pressured. Jessa educates, coaches, and supports people as they go through her four pillar experiential process that allows them real world practice in changing their relationship and their sex life, guiding them to become easily intimate. She's the author of Sex Without Stress, the host of the Better Sex podcast, the creator of the Intimacy with Ease method, and is a regularly featured expert in the media, including Refinery twenty nine, Business Insider, Mind Body Green, and Marriage.com.
Freya Graf:
So we're very lucky to have such an experienced wealth of knowledge that we can plunge the depths of today. Welcome, Jessa. I'm really excited to talk to you again.
Jessa Zimmerman:
I'm so excited to be back. I should update my bio because I actually got included in a New York Times article now, which is pretty cool. Oh, and the Wall Street Journal.
Freya Graf:
Whoo.
Jessa Zimmerman:
So, yeah, I gotta update that.
Freya Graf:
Girl, that's massive. Definitely update that. Yeah. Those are huge. Big, big claims to fame there.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah. Yeah. Alright. It's lovely to be back, and it's great to see you.
Freya Graf:
Thank you. So I wanna just get straight into it. This is something that everyone will probably have to tackle at some point in some shape or form, and it's sort of a little bit of an extension on the last topic that we covered, around having different desire levels and different libidos and having to figure out how to navigate that. So I'm assuming some of the strategies will be quite complimentary. How we go about reinventing sex when there's dysfunction or when we're coming up against some of the physiological changes in aging, is a common thing that I find clients are feeling a lot of stress and a lot of fear and a lot of, pressure, whether that be from a partner or usually from themselves about. So I'd love to just, like, cover off some of the common reasons that people might have to start, yeah, approaching sex a little bit differently. Some of the ones I I say commonly, and I'd love to cross check this with you, erectile challenges, things like endometriosis and, like, painful sex conditions like vaginismus, and then age related physical or hormonal changes, maybe vaginal dryness, maybe, you know, difficulties keeping an erection, and then things like injury or illness that obviously can cause libido and desire fluctuations. I did do an episode with Tara Galliano about sex with cancer and sex after cancer, so that sort of ties in a little bit.
Freya Graf:
But is there anything I've left out, or do you want to expand on any of those things that are gonna really, you know, create some challenges in people's intimate lives?
Jessa Zimmerman:
Well, I think first I just wanna reinforce that this is inevitable. I mean, at the very least, we're all getting older, right? So there will be changes as we age and as we're with the same person longer, if you're in a long term committed relationship. I mean, just the brain chemistry is different. And so the longer you're with somebody and the more sort of stable and secure and attached you are, you know, the less erotic it is and the less neurotransmitters are cruising through your brain. And then there's, like you said, there's just so many things that can happen that can affect our libido or sexual functioning, you know, medications. We left that one out, right? Kinds of medications that we might be on that are either causing sexual dysfunction or lower libido or trouble reaching an orgasm. There's relationship issues, not just being with the same person longer, but the kinds of issues that come up as we age or have children or struggle with money or whatever it is can can complicate this too. Oh, I guess one other thing I'll throw in there, which is not something going wrong is the shift towards what I call reactive sex drive too.
Jessa Zimmerman:
And partly that's being with the same person longer, but proactive drives, we've probably talked about this last time. That's when you're in the mood, you're thinking about sex, it's on your mind. I'd like to do this thing. And it's really common as we get older, as we're with the same person, as we have more obligations in life to move more towards reactive desire, which is we're starting at zero and the engine's cold. And this can be really unfamiliar to people. So if they were used to coming in hot, knowing what to do, and all of a sudden, you know, gosh, I just am never in the mood, you know, and and we try to jump in and do the same stuff, and it doesn't really work. Like, that's a real opportunity to sort of recreate things.
Freya Graf:
Absolutely. Yep. And it's funny. You you said that because as you were talking, I'd just been jotting down responsive versus spontaneous arousal. Remember to say Yes. About that? You know, exactly.
Jessa Zimmerman:
It's it's I talk about it all the time because it's so important. And people tend to think something is going wrong.
Freya Graf:
You
Jessa Zimmerman:
know, we think we're supposed to have this spontaneous desire and this, like, it should work like hunger. And then they really get kind of freaked out when that's gone. Like, I used to be in the mood. I used to want sex. Now I don't. So something's really wrong as opposed to no, no. That's a very natural shift, but you still have to adapt to it.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, the stress the the stress and panic that people feel when their arousal does shift from that sort of, proactive or spontaneous horniness in the beginning in that honeymoon phase, you know, once it starts shifting to more responsive, more reactive desire, they'll often think that there's something going wrong in the relationship or their body or that, you know, they've lost their libido. And I've talked about this at length in quite a few of my episodes. So if people wanna learn more, I'd say that we probably covered that thoroughly in our first episode of Jessup. Probably. Because it's so relevant, and I teach it, you know, all the time because it's very validating and normalizing for people when they realize that's an inevitable part of long term relating. It's not necessarily an indication that anything's gone awry.
Freya Graf:
That is just naturally what your body is going to do once you've been in a relationship for a long time with someone. And you don't need to necessarily change, you know, change anything about yourself. It's more just accepting that and figuring out, okay. Well, how do I approach sex now that my body isn't just automatically wanting it out of nowhere? And that's where we're gonna, I guess, go with this is, like, cool. How do we stop putting pressure on ourselves to get back to how we once were and actually accept where we're at now and figure out how we get the most out of that?
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah. I mean, that is that's so well stated because that's exactly what needs to happen. I certainly have therapy clients that come in and they want it to be the way it used to be. And most people recognize that that's not realistic. I mean, we're not 20 anymore. We're not going to be any closer to 20. The more years go by, like, it's not realistic to think we can go back and it really is. Well, I guess I'll say this.
Jessa Zimmerman:
There's a role for grieving that there's a place, you know, cause any change is a loss and there can be grief that it's not like it used to be. And that's okay. So I want to normalize it. That might be something you have to process and it's okay to feel sad about that. Disappointed about that. And the end, one of the end stages of grieving is like, okay, embracing the new normal. And then it's like, all right, how do we create the most exciting and the best sex life we can at this point with what we have? Right. So it is adjusting those expectations.
Freya Graf:
Definitely.
Jessa Zimmerman:
I did wanna say too, not everybody it's not it's not like we go from a % proactive desire to a % reactive. I mean, sometimes people do, but mostly it's we just have less and less spontaneous desire. You know, some people keep tons of it, but it's basically anybody who's not in the mood at the moment might potentially get in the mood. That's what we're talking about, you know? But yeah, for people that are really feeling no libido, it's like, can be alarming.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I love everything you just said, and that grieving piece is really real, you know, and it's necessary. Yeah. A lot of people feel this when they have had a baby and things just their bodies aren't the same afterwards. And, you know, it's okay to feel a little bit sad about that and a bit confronted by the challenges that poses because change is hard. It's always hard to adjust to.
Jessa Zimmerman:
It's it's always hard. And that's a nice example because having a baby is, you know, typically a pretty joyous experience. And it can kind of freak people out. Why am I so sad? But your whole life is different. You don't have the you know, not just your sex life, but your your time and energy and everything changes. And that any change is a loss and grieving can be part of that.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Do you think that it holds people back or keeps people in sort of an uncomfortable stage if they, don't accept the shift and continue sort of living in the past and wanting to go back. Do you know what I mean? Is that is that, yeah, something that happens a little bit as people get caught up in that?
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah. They definitely can get caught up in that.
Freya Graf:
And I think I I don't know.
Jessa Zimmerman:
What's coming to mind a little bit too is the couples that I see sometimes one partner is really grieving
Freya Graf:
how
Jessa Zimmerman:
it used to be. And the other one's a little more ready to move on. You know, like they've accepted their body has changed, or maybe not totally, but that can be a hard dynamic between a couple that somebody is really much more attached to the past and in that grief and having a harder time being ready to be like, okay, now what do we do? Cause you're, you know, you're not always in lockstep with your partner on this. But you know, and however long it takes someone to grieve on whatever the dances with that eventually it's like, okay, what are we going to do? And how are the two of you going to connect? And what kind of pleasure can you share?
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Absolutely. And that was actually one of my questions is, like, what do we do if we have a partner that's quite unwilling to tackle this with us or isn't really as sort of able. Maybe they don't have the capacity. Maybe they don't have the emotional literacy or the communication skills, or maybe they're just, yeah, they're just not as invested. Working on this, like, what do we do when we have an unwilling partner or one that just really doesn't understand the struggle if we're trying to reframe our approach to sex?
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah. That's a tricky one. I I mean, let's see.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. I
Jessa Zimmerman:
mean, you wanna you wanna give the partner some time and I think you wanna, you could lean into the empathy about the grief and the change and try to understand what they're struggling with and, you know, be willing to spend some time in that world with them to be compassionate and supportive. And I think it's a matter of education in some ways, like just, this is how it is, and this is what's going on with my body. And I really want to work this out now with how it works. And there's going to be a certain amount of like holding onto yourself and validating yourself and your willing, your own willingness to be like, yeah, this, we need to reinvent this and I've got to work with the pieces I've got. And I've got to make that okay for me, even if my partner struggles, you know, and I think sometimes we're going to lose relationships over that. Like you said, if somebody is not very invested, you know, we've been dating for a couple months and somebody just doesn't want to deal with it. You might, it might not make it, but then that's not going to be your person either. Yeah.
Jessa Zimmerman:
You know, but in my practice, I'm working with really committed couples who generally, you know, they, they, they get on board with the information that this changes. It's inevitable. It's normal. It doesn't mean something's going wrong. And it's actually a real opportunity. I have had so many clients end up saying, what a gift that we were sort of forced to reinvent our sex life and get out of the rut and the conveyor belt we were on and every, you know, if we'd never been challenged, it was fine. It was working. We didn't even think about it.
Jessa Zimmerman:
It was like autopilot. Yeah. And something about this wrench in the works forces them to address it and communicate differently and to explore new things and to like start over in a fresh way. And they end up so often seeing that as like a gift, you know, which is, it can kind of be hard to wrap your mind around.
Freya Graf:
What do you mean
Jessa Zimmerman:
my cancer diagnosis was a gift or the affair was a gift or those, your rectal dysfunction was a gift, but, but it really is an opportunity to start fresh from this moment.
Freya Graf:
Absolutely. It's a circuit breaker. And when you're it's this is something we I spoke about in the sex and cancer episode and also an episode I've done on, sex after menopause. And in both of those episodes, that was something that came up as a a real, feature of these times where we we are forced to put more effort in, put more thought in, to really listen to our bodies, to not bypass our own needs because we just can't get away with it anymore. We don't have the kind of, you know, responsive sorry, spontaneous arousal and, like, juicy lubrication of youth to kinda get away with a quickie when we're not really ready. You know? You can't really get away with the things that you once were able to, and get away with not communicating clearly about it. So it does sort of force us to level up and, I guess, enter a new stage of maturity and intimacy when it comes to relating with a partner, out of sheer necessity, and that is beautiful. Like, I think that's amazing, and such a great silver lining.
Freya Graf:
Obviously, it's still challenging, and it can be make or break for relationships for sure. But I'm curious what so because I I I work with people probably at a slightly different point. You work with couples that are basically pretty content and happy and work well as couples, but their sex life is an issue that they wanna
Jessa Zimmerman:
Generally, yes.
Freya Graf:
Yep. So I will often see, women as my clients who are very committed to doing the work on themselves, to figuring it out, to trying to improve their sex lives, their intimacy, their access to pleasure, and to sort it out. And not all the time. Often, they're with really gorgeous, willing partners, but a lot of the time, especially in the sort of older generation, the boomers, they're with these men that are completely unwilling or unable to come to the table. And so the women are going and doing all this work and reading all the books and doing the podcast and buying all the toys, and they're trying so hard half of the time to kind of meet his needs because they're thinking, oh, there's something wrong with me. I'm not wanting to have sex enough.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Right.
Freya Graf:
Meanwhile, I'm in I'm just thinking in the background, oh my fucking god. I wouldn't wanna have sex either if I was married to that person. You know? Right. And they can only do so much when they're kind of they're responsible for their side of things and also trying to take responsibility for the partner's side of things. So that's why I asked that question, and I suppose you don't really have to come up against that as often, but something that I do see a lot is, like, women just going, well, what do I do if, like, I'm the one that's leading the charge here, and I'm doing all this stuff, and he's just not he's just not meeting me in the middle? You know? And, like, my personal response in my head that I don't say as a as a coach is, like, get the fuck out of there and dump him. Get the fuck out of there. Yeah.
Jessa Zimmerman:
I mean, you really have to decide. You know, first of all, I would, I would invite any women to be doing this for themselves. It is not going to be sustainable to do all this work and have sex and all this stuff just to meet your partner's needs. That's not the basis on which we can build a thriving sex life. So do all this work and exploration to buy the toys and have a grand old time by yourself, as grand a time as you want to with your partner. But you can I really think you're gonna have to hold on to yourself and know what you're worth and what you, you know, insist on that and don't settle for less? And that's easy to say in in theory, you know, but if your whole financial livelihood depends on a part, I get it. It could be more complicated. You've got children together.
Jessa Zimmerman:
It's not it's not so easy to walk away, but there was a guy used to do a lot of training with who said, I love this. And it's like a Cohen that you could ponder forever. You only get as good a relationship as you're willing to lose.
Freya Graf:
Woah. Give me a second.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Ponder. Right. So basically, if you're, if you'll do anything to keep it, you'll throw yourself under the bus, you sacrifice you. You're not going to have a very good relationship like this, this capacity to say, you know what I have, I have limits here and I've got deal breakers and I can walk away if you won't meet me.
Freya Graf:
Yeah.
Jessa Zimmerman:
That's your chance to have a really great relationship because your partner's really called to stand up. Yeah. You know?
Freya Graf:
Yeah, exactly. They know
Jessa Zimmerman:
they can't get away with the same old shit. But again, I get it's more complicated if you've got children and financial ties and, you know, health issues, whatever, and not everybody can walk away, but at least try to hold onto yourself, validate yourself, enjoy your own pleasure, and don't be don't be dragged down into the muck.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, it's important to just draw a line in the sand, and even if you need to give yourself a time frame and just go, okay. I'll give them another year. And if at that point we've still got the same issues and I'm not getting my needs met, then I really do need to just make good on my, you know, my promise to myself and actually walk away because I don't wanna settle for anything less than this. And it's so hard. It's like you said, there's always reasons keeping us in a relationship.
Freya Graf:
And even if they're not, you know, financial reasons or sort of other practical ones, we often we're in love with this person, and we are living for the past. We're living for that first couple of years that it was amazing, and we're sort of settling for so much less than what we deserve for years and years and years on end because we're in love with the version of them that we know or Yeah. And we've
Jessa Zimmerman:
got and we've gotten very used to it. Right? My husband says you can't choose who you love, but you can choose who you live with.
Freya Graf:
Yes.
Jessa Zimmerman:
And it's like, you know, you get to decide what you're willing to accept. And I'll say, I mean, yes, there are entitled jerks out there who just think they should, you know, you should just have sex with them because they want it, whatever. But for a lot of these people, they're, they're ill equipped or they don't know, or they're, threatened or they're insecure or they don't necessarily show all this stuff except in their resistance. But if you change your steps in the dance, it can't be the same dance. And if you really hold onto yourself and start to behave differently and insist on things or say, no, I'm not going to have sex like that or whatever, you're going to get pushback at first. Certainly. But if you hold on to that and you're confident in what you're doing and you're validating yourself, the partner's going to notice and often they will shift because they actually are invested and they do want the relationship to work and they realize they can't push you back in the box. I mean, it's not really a conscious thing.
Jessa Zimmerman:
They're not trying to be manipulative usually. But they really if you can if you can change your steps with enough confidence and consistency, you might find your partner more willing to get on board too because they're realizing this is not the same thing and I might lose you.
Freya Graf:
Hey, baby babes. Sorry to interrupt. I just had to pop my head into the lounge here and mention another virtual lounge that I'd love you to get around. It's the Labia Lounge Facebook group that I've created for listeners of the potty to mingle in. There you'll find extra bits and bobs like freebies, behind the scenes, or discounts for offerings from guests who have been interviewed on the podcast. They'll also be, hopefully, inspiring, thought provoking conversations and support from a community of labial legends like yourself. My vision for this is that it becomes a really supportive, educational and hilarious resource for you to have more access to me and a safe space to ask questions you can't ask anywhere else. So head over to the links in the show notes or look up the Labia Lounge group in Facebook, and I'll see you in there.
Freya Graf:
And now back to the episode.
Jessa Zimmerman:
I mean, yeah, we have to start with just even, like, calling it out that if we think sex is penis and vagina to orgasm, if we've had a really rigid way of defining sex, and this is what it is, we have to name how limiting and harmful that is, especially now that you cannot do that thing anymore, or at least not the same way. Right. People quickly realize, oh, that doesn't, that definition doesn't serve me now that I can't get an erection or now that I have pain or whatever. So the permission that it all counts, I mean, sex is about pleasure and connection. That's it. You know, it's not who does what with what body parts or towards what outcome. So trying to give them that permission and freedom, you know, sometimes again, there's some grieving or some resistance, but for a lot of people it's relief. I had this couple, this was years ago now, ten years ago, twelve, I don't even know in their seventies.
Jessa Zimmerman:
And they came in because they couldn't have sex, which meant penetrative sex. And it was probably a combination of, you know, her dryness and vaginal atrophy, which I hate that word and ED, whatever, but they'd only thought about penetrative sex. That's all they had. That's all they'd known. That's all they thought counted. And one meeting where I just can give them permission to like, no, no, all of it is sex. Just don't do that. And then they were just like mind blown, right? Like really? So sometimes maybe it's a generational thing, but anyway, the permission that there's nothing specific that defines sex.
Jessa Zimmerman:
And so then I I work with people to really explore. What do they actually want? What feels good now? I use a particular touching exercise with almost all of my clients. It, they're going to emphasize different things depending on what the challenge is for them. But the main invitation is to be in charge of your own experience and your own pleasure and think about what you actually want to receive and to direct your partner in that. And they say no, if they have to, like, if they really need to, for sure. But otherwise they're just trying to follow your instructions and you do that for each other. And there's no goal. You're not trying to make anything happen.
Jessa Zimmerman:
It is not sex. It's so out of the norm that can we just explore and connect with what feels good in our bodies now and not worry about, you know, like not worry about what your penis is doing. You still have the nerve endings. If those are working, you can still feel really good, but maybe you don't get an erection. Can you get over that? This idea that it's supposed to, you know, get hard. It's like, no, no, just connect with pleasure and being a persistent in each other's.
Freya Graf:
I so commonly will have to and it's such a simple thing, but I'll I'll have to just remind people that sex isn't just penetration. That's not the bail and end all. And when you actually just relinquish the expectations that it look like that and that that is the culmination of a of a sort of sexual session, it changes the game completely, and it just takes all the pressure off the genitals and the penis. And
Jessa Zimmerman:
Right.
Freya Graf:
Often ask clients, males and females, like, what do you love the most about sex? And no one ever goes, oh, ejaculation or orgasm. It's like connection, pleasure, intimacy, feeling close to my partner, feeling the opposite from our skin on skin and the cuddles. I like the pillow talk. I like, you know, the kind of curious exploration. Like, there's so many things you can actually enjoy in intimacy that don't involve penetration at all. And once you expand your, like, your sort of, like, sexual horizons to include all of that, like you said, all of it's sex, and all of it can be so delicious and rewarding and nourishing, Yes. Even more so if you're used to having this sort of, like, penetrative sex thing as the main goal and on this pedestal and ignoring all the rest of it as just, like, a stepping stone to get to that.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah. Even the word foreplay. Right? Like, it's not just to get us over where the real thing.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. So if you're used to that as your default, it can be so liberating and so exciting to actually realize how much enjoyment you can get when you take that down off the pedestal, as the be all and end all, and you just start to enjoy the journey. And it sounds so cliche, but it's such a thing.
Jessa Zimmerman:
And No. It's so true. Get
Freya Graf:
all of those things, connection, intimacy, eye contact, touch, pleasure, arousal, you can enjoy all of those things without having penetration. Yeah. So I love I love everything you just said.
Jessa Zimmerman:
So it makes me think too, you know, because I said before, they sort of conveyor belt sex. I mean, so many couples who have been together for a while have a way they have sex, it tends to be very efficient and they do a little bit. And as soon as he's hard and she's wet, Hey, we have sex and we're done. And they're barely, it's like you're driving to work and you tune out.
Freya Graf:
I I mean, maybe not the whole thing,
Jessa Zimmerman:
but it's like, it doesn't really wake up your brain when there's nothing new or surprising. And so something like my exercise, or like we are so totally not doing the normal thing, and I'm invited to like, in this moment, what do I want? And in the next moment, what do I mean? You have to pay attention so differently. And it's like, that's so much better, you know, than like asleep at the wheel, but, you know, doing the usual thing.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. So true. Because, you know, one of the most important things I believe in a in a really, like, satisfying sort of intimate encounter is presence. And that's like feeling your partner's presence and also being able to be present yourself, which is actually such a it's a disappearing skill, I think, in today's day and age. Our attention spans are shortening. We're impatient. We're busy. We're stressed.
Freya Graf:
We're overwhelmed. We're overthinking. And so being fully present and able to just both be gifting the other our presence in that moment means that we're able to access so much more pleasure and connection. And because it's a circuit breaker and we're not just on that conveyor belt sex of, like, cool. First, we're gonna kiss. Now I'm gonna suck her nipple. Then we're gonna do some hand stuff. Now I'm gonna suck his dick, and then we're gonna put it in.
Freya Graf:
Like, if we're not just, like, you know, like you're saying, snoozing at the wheel because we're going Right. We're we're following this, you know, trajectory that we've been doing for the last twenty years. You notice so much more along the way. If you take a different route, or maybe you instead of driving to work, you ride your bike or you walk, you're gonna be taking in so much more detail and information and enjoying and savoring that journey. And it's the same with sex. So I love that you use that analogy.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah. And I will say, I mean, I think if I asked I asked a little bit differently, like, what is it you want from sex? But I definitely have people that will say orgasm is what you know, is is a highlight of the experience, and I definitely can't be able to have an orgasm if they can. So there, I, but I think sharing that orgasm with someone, because otherwise we could masturbate, you know, orgasm's great there too. But like in sex, it's not just about the climax, it's about the experience of sharing that with somebody too. So that
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Just not to totally discount that.
Freya Graf:
No. No. Of course. I mean, we all love orgasms. The more the merrier. But, I do feel like the the less we focus on that as the kind of goal or the only successful outcome, the more likely you are to have a better orgasm anyway.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Absolutely. Yeah. And it doesn't just have to, you know, sometimes you ask people, I haven't asked anybody to this in a while, but like, how do you know when sex is over? It's like, why is it just over after you come? I mean, like that doesn't need to be, is that when you want it to be? I mean, that it just so reinforces, like, that was the whole point. And then if you struggle to get there once or because now there's been a change or something, it can really reinforce this. Oh, we're failing now. We're not hitting the goal. And any anything that's adding pressure and failure is gonna be a, you know, a deterrent and a problem.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Absolutely. Cool. Well, shall we do, the segment get pregnant and die? Don't have sex because you will get pregnant and just have sex. Don't have sex in a missionary position, but I thought I'd have sex standing up. Just don't do it. Promise?
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah. So I grew up in a very sex positive house. So I had, I actually, I missed the entire week of sex ed in eighth grade because I had chicken pox, but, but my parents were very open and my mom actually worked for an organization that did pregnancy and contraception counseling and abortion counseling. And she was eventually was doing all the sex ed in the schools. So I had, I had really good sex ed, but the thing I noticed hearing from my children now that's different than I didn't get so much was the emphasis on consent. Obviously we knew, you know, an assault wasn't good, but like to role play or to practice setting boundaries and having some limits. Cause in my own experience, it was a certain amount of like, oh, once we get going, you know, once we start, we gotta finish sort of. And it would have been, I think, much more helpful to realize, oh, no, there's consent all along the way and you really get to think about what it is you actually want.
Freya Graf:
Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm really pleased that there's more legislation coming in in Australia around affirmative consent and therefore more funding and more programs in schools. Whether or not they're gonna be effective is another story. I think managing to deliver that sort of content and change a culture around something to teenagers, you know, especially when it's designed by adults, is definitely not always on the money. So especially something like that where kids just don't wanna fucking hear about it, but Right. We can start shifting the needle.
Freya Graf:
Cool. Thank you for that. I'll definitely get a TMI story from you at the end as well so, we can we can hit the segments. I can't remember what you said in your last episode, but I bet you I won't hear my stories from it. So talk to me a little bit about sex with aging and how that can pose challenges. I've heard from people that, like, I'll get clients who kinda come in and say, my orgasms are different. They've changed. They're no longer as powerful.
Freya Graf:
It's not as intense. It's more difficult to access. Is there a reason for this? Can we reverse this sort of sort of I don't wanna say the word decline, but it sounds from what a lot of people have described to me, and not not everyone, but I have heard people describe their orgasms feeling more subdued. What do we do about this? Is this something you work with? Say more on
Jessa Zimmerman:
that. Yeah. I mean, I think that the the general aging of our bodies, but especially the hormonal shifts that happen for everybody, but more extremely for women, are going to change things. The tissues change, the functioning changes, you know, men are going to have more struggle with, with erections generally, as they get older and older, the blood flows different. You know, the tissues are, I don't wanna say wearing out, but they're getting, you know, the cellular changes are happening and affecting the function. And men have declining testosterone. What I've learned since our last visit was that for women, basically the hormone production stops entirely out of the ovaries. So you still have a little bit in your brain, but you have stopped producing estrogen and testosterone and progesterone are way, way, way down and that will affect libido and it will affect arouse your actual tissues and it will affect your orgasm.
Jessa Zimmerman:
So we're, you know, I would highly encourage people now to at least talk to their doctor about hormone replacement. I've done a bunch of episodes about this on my podcast too. And there was one really bad study, the women's health initiative, I think it was called that scared everybody off of this Yeah. As if it was cancer causing and it really isn't. So, you know, there there used to be, I can't remember what the doctor said, like sixty or seventy percent, maybe it's even higher if women were on hormone replacement. And now it's like seven percent because of that Wow. Study that got kind of amplified in our culture and scared freaked everybody the fuck out about hormone replacement. So anyway, I would encourage people to get the information, talk to your physician, consider that because the changes are dramatic.
Jessa Zimmerman:
And so, you know, without, without replacing the harm, I mean, you know, good health, sleep and diet and exercise, you wanna maximize your functioning in any way you can. But other than that, it's gonna be about adapting to the changes, right? Again, not needing an erection or doing things besides penetrative sex if there's pain or something like that.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I did a, an episode with Joanna McMeekin, who works specifically with women around hormonal changes and perimenopause and menopause. So she does Chinese medicine. She does hormone stuff, and that was a really informative episode. I really respect and trust her take because I'm so I sort of have a healthy suspicion of the medical system and the pharmaceutical industry along with, you know, an openness to how they can actually help. But I like Joanna's approach because she's very scientifically based and also very holistic.
Freya Graf:
So she's not just like, cool. Let's just chuck a pill at that. Let's go full western medicine on it. She's very much a nice combo of, like, Eastern and Western and just a shit ton of research because she just goes so deep on special interesting the shit out of these topics. So if anyone's interested in, in sort of supplements and hormone replacement therapy and ways that you can use diet and lifestyle, and herbs and all sorts of things to kind of influence your tissues, your libido, your pleasure when you are going through or have gone through menopause, that is a really cool but I'm I'm wanting to, like, one other thing because I'm feel like I've just drilled you on a whole bunch of different, you know what about this? What about this? What about this? Absolutely. Which is just, I mean, I mean, I guess that's why we're here, but, you know, they are just common things that I hear clients come to me and talk about. So I figure that must mean that other people are, you know, wanting to know more about this as well. What about, people who have chronic pain conditions or chronic illnesses, making it really difficult to even access pleasure or enough relaxation in the body to access pleasure because there's this constant presence of pain and contraction.
Freya Graf:
Like, where do we begin in that regard?
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah. I mean, in some ways, I feel like what I'm gonna say is it's sort of it's in addition to whatever other support you're getting medically and in therapy and stuff like that to deal with chronic pain. I mean, like chronic pain is not my specialty. Right? And I haven't experienced it. And I can only imagine from what some people have told me what this is like. I think it's probably, I don't know this balance of taking care of yourself and trying to see where you've got some resources to bring to your partnership without hurting yourself, without sabotaging yourself, you know? So people talk about like how many spoons do I have today or something And trying to to realize what opportunities do you have a little bit more energy or access? And can you prioritize some of this to be with your partner and, you know, but you can't bend over backwards trying to just meet your partner's needs. Right? You've gotta take care of yourself too. And I think there's a real invitation to I mean, you really may have to redefine sex here.
Jessa Zimmerman:
So Yeah. What what do you want to receive? Do you want your hair brushed? Or your feet rubbed? Or do you just want to be held? Like, it all counts. Like, just allow yourself whatever pleasure you can have without putting some idea that I was supposed to get aroused or something like that. Like, let yourself receive something, you know, and as much as would be really wonderful for you. And then really consider what can you participate in with your partner? What, where are your boundaries? What are your limits? What can you do? Can you snuggle up with them while they touch themselves? Or what you know, you really might have to redefine what counts, but you can still share some of these intimate moments.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. That's beautiful. I love I love the, you know, the brushing hair or the foot massage or just having a bath together. Like, it doesn't have to be, you know, overtly sexual. I think, all of those little things are really gorgeous and caring and intimate and pleasurable. The main issue, I feel like, is this fear that they're not able to perform their duty as a partner, or they're not able to, you know, hold up their end of the bargain or deliver pleasure in return or you know, I feel like that's such a vulnerable position to be in when you're
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah.
Freya Graf:
Sick or you're unable, for whatever reason, to kind of give in return in the way that you would like or the way that you feel your partner would like. How scary and how vulnerable to to be in that spot? Do you feel like that's a fear that people come in with thinking, like, oh, god. Their needs aren't being met, and I'm not able to do that, and kinda beating ourselves up for that?
Jessa Zimmerman:
I I mean, yes. It's it's a you know, you got dealt a shitty hand. Right? It's not like this is your fault or you caused it or you're just wimping out or you're not you know, like, you've got something real. And it's hard when somebody's got an autoimmune thing that's invisible. Invisible. Yeah. Right? So it's like this invisible illness, but it's real. And, yes, you're the one that has it, but it's not your fault.
Jessa Zimmerman:
You're dealing Yep. You know, with this really shitty hand. And hopefully a partner is compassionate about that. They, you know, understand that you're ill. Sometimes I turn it around. Like if I have, I don't know, if I have a woman with menopause and now sex is painful and so they can't have penetrative sex, And then she's feeling horrible about herself, you know, and he's maybe feeling bad about this. But it's like, okay. What if it were the other way around? Or ten years from now when it's your erectile dysfunction that means you can't have penetrative sex.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Would you be beating him up about that? Like you're beating yourself up about your changes? You know, to level the playing field and realize either person could have something happen in their life that changes their sexual functioning. And it's not, you know yeah. It sucks, but it's nobody's fault. Right? And if we start to try it on, like, oh, yeah. What if it had been me that this happened to? I'd want compassion for that. Right?
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Oh my god. I do the exact same thing because the most the most, like, common dynamic that I see is, like, the woman feeling guilty, or, like, not enough or whatever. And that's just, you know, we've been socialized to feel that way and to to feel like, you know, we need to be pleasuring our partner and things like that. And I just go, hey. Like, imagine if every time you had sex, and you wanted to have an orgasm, it was, like, fiery painful for his penis, and he bled afterwards. There's no fucking way you would make him have sex with you. There's just no way on this planet that you would be able to even get turned on knowing he was in so much pain.
Freya Graf:
So why do you expect yourself and your body to just perform and suck it up for his benefit? And, also, what a disservice we might be doing to our partner by just going through with something even though it's so painful or uncomfortable for us, for their benefit. But, actually, like, if they were to if they were to realize how much pain we're in because of what we're trying to do for them, like, they would be mortified. And that would be
Jessa Zimmerman:
Oh, yeah. I mean, I've I I've had so many couples come in where the guys just like, I didn't realize this, and now I'm like, I I can't it's almost like I can't trust her. Is it okay? Or is it not? I mean, this is the last thing I want is to be causing pain.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And that kind of, like, leads me to a a topic that I speak a lot about, and I saw a gorgeous quote when I was doing a little perusal of your Instagram in preparation for this, around saying no. Like, I work with a lot of people and have so many friends as well that just really struggle to say no. And I love this quote of yours. The ability to say no is the fountain of trust in a relationship. So say more on that.
Freya Graf:
Excuse this quick interruption. I'm shamelessly seeking reviews and five star ratings for the potty because as I'm sure you've noticed by now, it's pretty fab. And the more people who get to hear it, the more people I can help with it. Reviews and ratings actually do make a big difference to this little independent podcaster, and it's really easy to just quickly show your support by taking that simple act of either leaving five stars for the show on Spotify or even better, writing a written review and leaving five stars over on Apple Podcasts. Or if you're a real overachiever, you can do them both. That would be mad. If you're writing a review though, just be sure to use g rated words because despite the fact that this is a podcast about sexuality, words like sex can be censored and your review won't make it through the gates. Lame.
Freya Graf:
Anyway, I would personally recommend doing that right now while you remember just to get on top of it and let me know you're with me on this journey. Thanks, gang. Enjoy the rest of the epi.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Well, if you can't say no, you can't truly say yes, First of all, right? You've got, you've got to have the ability to say no for your yes to mean anything. And your partner can't trust where you're coming from. And if you want this, if you can't have those boundaries and say no. So I tell my couples this all the time, you should really celebrate no. And I mean that literally. Hallelujah. You're taking care of yourself. That's what frees me up to know I can ask you for anything and you'll let me know if it's a problem.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Cause I don't want you going through things that are painful or bad for you or gonna traumatize you or I'm gonna hear about it later. Like, that's not trust building. So no means someone is taking care of themselves and that's good for both people and should be celebrated, not taken as rejection. I mean, you might be disappointed because you wanted this thing and you didn't get it, but overall it's a very positive thing. And it's crucial for trust. Because if somebody's been having sex that hurts and they never told their partner or whatever, doing something they don't like, and they're finally speaking up, their partner, they'll like the ground has moved under their feet. Like, I don't know what to think or what to believe. How am I ever going to know if she really wants to do that? Whatever wants, really wants to do this.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Are they going along again? Like it's, it's so trust demolishing.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Absolutely. How are we gonna trust their yes if if we've just realized that there's been so many yeses that actually weren't authentic, and that they haven't had their own back? And I think, like, it's such a, it's a real, like, honor, and and it's a it's a compliment. It's a sign of health in the relationship if someone feels safe to say no because it's received well, and it's Mhmm. Normalized that a no is okay and even celebrated. So, yeah, that's just a skill that I because I work mostly with women as well, and they definitely have been more socialized and conditioned to say yes and people please. It's something that I find myself working with people on really commonly, and it you know, at first, they're kinda like, what has this got to do with sex? But it's everything. It's everything because, yeah, like you were saying, if you can't say no, like, what does your yes even mean, and what a disservice you're doing to your partner and the relationship if this is the sort of relationship where it's now normalized, to bypass your own needs and to be basically dishonest about where you're at, and you're not trusting your partner enough with your no.
Freya Graf:
Not even giving them a chance to respond to your no. So I think, you know, and and that's also just such a great way to, like, weed out the people that you really shouldn't be gifting with your body anyway, you know?
Jessa Zimmerman:
Right. Right. Right. And I will say, there is a there can be the other end of the spectrum, and maybe somebody who wasn't good at no swings way over with no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And they're sort of not willing to even engage or consider or wonder or try. I mean, no can be overused in some ways. It can be used as protection and and be, you know, a boundary set way out here, or maybe it only has to be here. So it's it's worth the conversation around.
Freya Graf:
Yeah.
Jessa Zimmerman:
You know, is this Totally. Yeah. Where do you kinda really need to say no? And and where is it like a defense mechanism or a protection?
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Exactly. And, you know, when you're figuring it out, there might be some, like, kind of crunchy teething times where you're figuring it out and you overcome it for
Jessa Zimmerman:
a while.
Freya Graf:
And that's okay too just to kind of really drill in the no. You might overuse it for a little while, and then it might be about, okay. Cool. Now that I know, I can a % feel safe to say no and nothing you know, there's no backlash. It's it's all gonna be okay and acceptable. Now I can actually make a choice, like, and properly pause and reflect, like, am I a yes, am I a no, or am I a maybe? Because, like, we were talking about with reactive or responsive arousal, you might not feel turned on or horny or, like, you want, you know, sex or penetration or whatever it is to begin with, but you can also just know that your arousal may kick in at a certain point if things are feeling nice and if there's no pressure. So you can kind of have an open mind and just approach it with, like, a, maybe not right now, but maybe, or I'm open to it. And I know that I can be open to it, and potentially that maybe turn into a yes because I also know that it can turn into a no.
Freya Graf:
And I don't have to get halfway through and be like, oh, fuck. Well, now I have to follow follow
Jessa Zimmerman:
through with it. So, you said something before I just wanna speak to too, which is, you know, the fear of, you know, I'm not, I'm not pleasing my partner. And I just wanna emphasize that in my mind, we're each responsible for our own pleasure. So first of all, we have to communicate enough to our partner that they have the information to be pleasing to us. But it's also, it's not our job to get our partner off because they're aroused. But I do think there's a real opportunity and one should consider how can I participate in their pleasure? I could be responding. I could do everything to bring them to an orgasm, but I could also like cuddle up next to them while they touch themselves. And to me, that is all sex.
Jessa Zimmerman:
So it's like, how it, what capacity can I participate this time and feel good about, Or how many spoons do I have if it's chronic illness kind of thing?
Freya Graf:
Yeah.
Jessa Zimmerman:
And that's okay. So it's not like your job to please your partner. It's your job to, as much as you can, be part of the process and share that with them. And again, that's a redefinition of sex. Right? We're just sharing this experience. That is sex. It's not who's doing what.
Freya Graf:
Beautiful. Yeah. That's beautiful. I love that. Yep. Sharing in and participating in and maybe adding to in whatever gentle manageable way you can.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Whatever we can. Yeah.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Beautiful. So how often should we be talking about sex with our partner? Obviously, we don't want to be fixating on it or problem solving it instantly, but it's also not just a once off chat that you get to do one time and then that's it. Right? So what's like best practice with this?
Jessa Zimmerman:
Well, I mean, there's not like a number, I guess, I guess the first thing I'll say is in sex itself or right after is not the time to do like a postmortem. What went wrong? What could be better? How did, you know, like just live in that for a while, have the conversations that are a little harder, not critical, but like constructive, you know, something needs to change kind of things, probably away from the bedroom. So that's first of all. And like, I mean, I don't know. It's not like you wanna be having this conversation every day, endlessly, and I have plenty of clients that talk about it so much and it's just so discouraging,
Freya Graf:
but
Jessa Zimmerman:
you also don't want to just bring it up every six months or a year when it really gets to be crisis mode too. So I think maybe more than how often is what's the spirit of that conversation? I think one of the biggest mistakes I'll hear from people is they are the conversations are rooted in what's wrong and how their needs are not being met. And while that is true and painful, it's likely to make your partner feel bad and just feel worse and feel more broken and feel more responsible and feel more discouraged. So I think a conversation that's more rooted in, Hey, I want this to be as good as it can be. The goal here is a win win. Like, I'm not looking to just get my needs met. I'm looking for the two of us to co create a sex life, an intimate life that we can both really enjoy and feels easy to both of us. And what could that take? I mean, really trying to stay positive and hopeful.
Jessa Zimmerman:
And what if it were possible and what would that take and how could we do that? And, and try to avoid the, the cycle of, I feel so bad. Well, I feel so bad too. And neither one of us knows what to do of it. You know, we're having the exact same conversation. We both feel just stuck. That's so discouraging. Yeah.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Absolutely. And I love the the spirit of the conversation being collaborative, being kinda like, cool. We're on the same team. We both want the same thing. We both want to connect and to deepen our intimacy, and we both are aware that there's something kinda going awry or missing or that could be improved. And so how do we how do we focus on what is working and embellish and accentuate, and and expand on that? How do we kinda go, oh, these things aren't amazing. We could improve on that, and and look at what does work to inform how we go about improving the stuff that doesn't feel like it's working.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Well, Anne, not only are we collaborating or co creating the solution, I think it's really helpful to recognize and acknowledge. We have co created the problem, whatever it is.
Freya Graf:
Yeah.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Because a lot of times I think higher desire person, both people tend to think the lower desire person is the one who's got the problem and whose problem it is. And it's their lack of desire that's the issue and what gets overlooked or not even understood is how much of a role that higher desire person has had in creating pressure or expectations or making them feel better, you know, so many ways. So it's been co created. And so to take ownership of your own role in this and realize, Hey, we got here together. I have a role in that too, and together, I'd like to make something better.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Something you were saying about, the I can't remember the words you used, but, you know, just sort of, reminding people, probably don't do, like, a full kind of pros and cons list midway through sex or straight after. Reminds me, of this. I just ran a workshop over the weekend at a festival and which is kinda why I've lost my voice. And someone someone called it a match review, like, the process of kinda going, cool. Okay. So how was that for you? These were the things you did well. These were the things that I didn't, like, you know, do a bit of a blow by blow under
Jessa Zimmerman:
Like, here are here are my notes. You know?
Freya Graf:
And I just thought that was such funny language, like, and way of thinking of it. And I guess, like, in the absence of knowing how to approach it or having a framework around how to communicate about sex in, you know, in the name of improving our experience, like, a lot of people don't know how to approach that. So maybe a match review would be their go to strategy. So just on the one final kind of question, you sort of already touched on it, but just to be really kinda clear and give people some actionable steps, how do we talk to a partner about sex and about concerns and about the need to reinvent the way we're doing it, whether you're the higher desire or the lower desire partner?
Jessa Zimmerman:
Well, I I guess as general advice, I would use a lot of I language and make it, you know, centric to you and your experience and what you're realizing that you're needing or something's going on. And try not to be like, oh, your partner, you know, you you you aren't doing enough or you're not doing right or, you know, people aren't gonna generally respond well. But
Freya Graf:
hey Yeah.
Jessa Zimmerman:
I realize something's changing and it doesn't quite feel the same and I need something different and I would love to explore that with you. So trying to take a lot of ownership around it, I think. Mhmm. You know, we do have to be able to speak up in sex specifically about, actually, can you move a little to the left or whatever. Right? But not the the sort of meta discussion about how are we each feeling about this. And and I guess, you know, go into those conversations really curious about how how it is for your partner and how they're feeling and kind of imagine what they might be afraid of or what they're thinking, you know, what's, what might be making this hard for them too. And then,
Freya Graf:
you know,
Jessa Zimmerman:
this meeting in the middle with a bit. The bottom line is we love each other. And we both really we wanna make this as good as possible. And if sex could be fun and easy for both of us, wouldn't that be lovely? And how can we work towards that?
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Humanity first. You know? Understanding compassion, love. These are values that ideally, we wanna have at the core of the relationship and how we communicate with one another and navigate these things. And that can be really hard to hang on to when we're triggered as fuck, and there's a whole lot of shame and trauma and, you know, insecurity around sex and performance and whatever else. But, you know, if you just kind of put humanity first and really try to look at it from both sides, and that's where the argument for having these conversations outside of the heat of the bedroom really comes
Jessa Zimmerman:
Right.
Freya Graf:
Into play. It's like we want to be in a calm, kind of regulated space so that we can chat about this stuff without being too reactive or too triggered.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah. We're sort of back to the idea too of validating yourself and holding on to yourself and knowing that you you're advocating for what you need. And so if you get a defensive reaction, you know, that you, you don't just back down. Oh, nevermind. I don't need an orgasm, you know, but it's like realizes your partner's kind of problem. It's coming up. Something's being triggered in them and you still get to advocate for what you need. I'm thinking about the story of a couple that this was back when I would occasionally see people alone.
Jessa Zimmerman:
So this woman came in and she said she'd been faking orgasms with her partner the whole time. And so we talked about it and she was going to tell him this. And then they came in together and he had the most beautiful response to this because he was like, how awful that you felt like you had to pretend that whole time. And I am so looking forward to starting from the beginning and exploring. And I just feel so bad that you felt the pressure to like have to do that. And it was just like, I mean, literally, it's been the best response I've ever heard. And so that's one end of the spectrum is somebody that's like, holy cow, you had to do that. That's just awful.
Jessa Zimmerman:
And I wanna totally explore with you. So you might get that response, but you might get defensiveness. Somebody that's like, what, you've been lying to me this whole time? I wasn't dude. I mean, who knows? And it's gonna come from from threat and insecurity and you know, all kinds of stuff. So trying to hold on to yourself for that and still advocate for what you need and
Freya Graf:
Yeah.
Jessa Zimmerman:
You know, invite them into a collaborative process. And again, eventually, if they're not willing to go there with you, you've gotta think about whether this is the right relationship.
Freya Graf:
Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god. That anecdote gave me goosebumps, that the response from that man. So beautiful. Yeah. And also, like, I think we said this in the last episode, like, sometimes this shit's too hard to do alone and just go hire a professional and give that a crap before you give up. Like, it's it's really tricky to navigate this.
Freya Graf:
It's not Yeah. Yeah. Not easy for anyone. You know? That's why people like Jessa exist and people like me exist. So, you know, I could never have healed all of my sexual shit if I didn't enlist the help of professionals that were further along that journey to me, than me. So alright. Do you have a TMI story for us just to tap this episode on?
Jessa Zimmerman:
Do you have we build it? Well, I do have a TMI story. It's sort of like what I wish I'd learned too, but now, you know, I'm, I'm 61 at the time of this recording. So I'm well into menopause. And I did that interview on my podcast with Doctor. Erwin Goldstein. He's the founder of the entire field of sexual medicine. He founded the international society for the study of women's sexual health. Anyway, that's where I learned some things for the first time like that the hormone production totally stops and basically your genitals, women's genitals will start to revert to a seven year old's without those hormones.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Yeah. We finished up. Yeah, we, I didn't know that. I mean, I had the sense that my genitals were shrinking, but I thought, is this really happening? I was way too embarrassed to ask my husband to, like, look and tell are they really shrinking? It's freaking me the fuck out, though. And then when he said that and that this could be reversed with hormone I mean, literally, we got off the episode, said goodbye. I called up and I made an appointment. I flew to San Diego and saw him. I also learned, you know, not only is the shrinkage of the labia, but of the clitoris.
Jessa Zimmerman:
I knew about some of the pain. That part I knew. The urethra telescopes open without estrogen. That's why there's so many more UTIs. Yeah. I didn't know that either. So you've got yeah. So it's sort of like he had a he had some picture, obviously non identifying.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Right. But like, it becomes almost looking like a a donut, like a really little donut, like a lifesaver was the size of like a lifesaver, the whole of the urethra. It's like telescopes open without the estrogen. Yeah. TMI. So it freaked, but it all freaked me out. But then it was so reassuring to think, oh, wait, this is the anatomical changes are basically reversible. It's like, oh, okay.
Jessa Zimmerman:
But I really thought I was going crazy and it's like, am I you know, because I can't see my genitals. I don't pull out a mirror anymore or anything, but it's like, really feels like everything's smaller and shrinking. What is going on? And nowhere had I ever heard that from any of my, you know, my mom, any of the women, fifteen years as a certified sex therapist, I had never heard this. So I knew about the pain and the lack of lubrication. That's all I'd ever heard. So anyway Yeah.
Freya Graf:
That's why I'm telling my story. Wild. I mean, no. I love that. That's like and I'm sure that will be very validating to a lot of people hearing that for the first time as well. I knew about the, you know, the hormones stopping and the shrinkage as a result, and, yeah, the clitoral sort of shrinkage and things like this. But I had no idea that your urethra, like, telescoped and got that that just seems like a sick joke that your clit's shrinking while your piss opens.
Jessa Zimmerman:
You've got your urethra's opening up. Yeah. Exactly. Hey,
Freya Graf:
Megan. If you'd like to support the potty and you've already given it five stars on whatever platform you're listening on, I wanna mention that you can buy some really dope merch from the website and get yourself a labia lounge tote, tea, togs. Yep. You heard that right. I even have labia lounge bathers. Or a cute fanny pack if that'd blow your hair back. So, if fashion isn't your passion though, you can donate to my buy me a coffee donation page, which is actually called buy me a soy chai latte because I'll be the first to admit, I'm a bit of a Melbourne cafe tosser like that. And, yes, that is my coffee order.
Freya Graf:
You can do a one soft donation or an ongoing membership and sponsor me for as little as 3 fat ones a month. And I also offer one on one coaching and online courses that'll help you level up your sex life and relationship with yourself and others in a really big way. So every bit helps cause it ain't cheap to put out a sweet podcast, into the world every week out of my own pocket. So I will be, I'm dyingly grateful if you support me and my biz financially in any of these ways. And if you like, I'll even give you a mental BJ with my mind from the lounge itself. Saucy. And, I'll pop the links in the show notes. Thank you.
Freya Graf:
Later.
Jessa Zimmerman:
Well, yeah. And he it when I was in my appointment and I was saying it wasn't really libido changes that were my biggest concern. Wasn't even a little bit of pain or just I wasn't, I mean, I'm sort of in the discomfort part, but it was the, what he called, he said, I should start giving my patients a genital self esteem scale. There's some sort of measurement about how you feel about your genitals. It was shocking to him to hear that was my biggest concern. It's like my genitals are shrinking and they're not the ones I knew. And he seemed so shocked. And I wish I had said to him, if you looked down and saw your genitals turning more to like they were when you were a seven year old boy,
Freya Graf:
how the fuck would you feel? I mean, it's you know? It's like Oh my gosh. It's a big deal. So, anyway, that's my that's my team. My story. Oh, wow. Oh my gosh. Alright. I love that.
Freya Graf:
I loved this chat. I just, yep, adore everything you say is just so aligned with, yep, my my work and my views. And, yeah, thank you so much for Oh, you are welcome. Really, you with so many questions because, like, every single answer was so loaded with amazing, helpful, insightful stuff. You're a fucking bad bitch. I love it. Keep keep killing it. And thank you so much for being a guest the second time around on the on the lounge.
Jessa Zimmerman:
You are so welcome. Thanks for having me.
Freya Graf:
And that's it, darling hearts. Thanks for stopping by the labia lounge. Your bum groove in the couch will be right where you left it, just waiting for you to sink back in for some more double l action next time. If you'd be a dear and subscribe, share this episode or leave a review on iTunes, then you can pat yourself on the snatch because that's a downright act of sex positive feminist activism and you'd be supporting my vision to educate, empower, demystify and destigmatize with this here podcast. I'm also always open to feedback, topic ideas that you'd love to hear covered, questions or guest suggestions, so feel free to get in touch via my website or over on Insta. You can also send me in TMI stories to be shared anonymously on the pod. My handle is freyagraf underscore the labia lounge. If my account hasn't been deleted for being too sex positive, which, you know, is always a possibility with censorship.
Freya Graf:
But just in case the chronic censorship finally does obliterate my social channels, I'd highly recommend going and joining my mailing list and snagging yourself some fun freebies for the trouble at www.freyagraf.com/freebies. Anyway, later labial legends. See you next time.