Lauren Elise Rogers on Healing from Purity Culture

Are You Healing from Purity Culture? Purity culture can leave deep emotional scars that impact our understanding of sexuality, relationships, and self-worth. In this powerful episode, sexuality educator Lauren Elise Rogers joins us to explore how individuals can reclaim their sexual identity and find healing through the transformative power of erotic imagination.

Lauren Elise Rogers is a Certified Holistic Sexuality Educator, Embodied Intimacy & Relationship Coach, and the founder of Sex Ed For You, where she provides clear, compassionate, and comprehensive guidance on intimacy, relationships, and sexual health. 

Her holistic and embodied approach to education and coaching is deeply rooted in her own pain-to-purpose journey. She is known for creating shame-free spaces, where she invites individuals and couples to navigate complex topics like: Long-Term Partnerships, Purity Culture Obstacles, Consensual Non-Monogamy, Life Transitions, Mismatched Libido, & LGBTQIA+ issues. Despite growing up in "Purity Culture," where dating and physical intimacy were forbidden, Lauren now proudly centers agency and autonomy in her redemptive love story with her partner.

In this episode, we're discussing:

• Sexual fantasies are a normal and healthy way to explore your desires safely, with women typically placing themselves at the center of their erotic imagination.
• Purity culture creates harmful beliefs that tie personal worth to sexual purity, limiting individual sexual expression and self-understanding.
• Erotic literature can be a powerful tool for sexual healing, allowing individuals to explore fantasies and understand their core erotic themes without judgment.
• Communication with partners about sexual fantasies and desires can strengthen relationships and create deeper intimacy.
• Parents play a crucial role in sex education, and addressing personal sexual shame is essential to providing healthy guidance for children.
• Solo sexual exploration is a valuable journey of self-discovery that can help individuals understand their desires and build sexual confidence.
• The four core erotic themes (longing, prohibition, power dynamics, and overcoming ambivalence) can help people understand their unique sexual preferences.

Your sexual journey is uniquely yours. Start reclaiming your narrative today by exploring literature that speaks to your experiences, and remember: healing is a personal, powerful process of self-discovery and liberation.

CONNECT WITH LAUREN ELISE ROGERS:

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BOOKS/AUTHORS MENTIONED:

Lauren on the Pleasure in the Pause Podcast

The Erotic Mind By Jack Morin (Amazon)

Ep 9 - Asexuality, Aromanticism, and the Spectrum of Identity with Margherita Scialla

Running list of books mentioned (Doc)

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Affiliate Disclosure: Some of the links in these show notes are affiliate links. If you make a purchase or borrow a book through these links, I may earn a small commission at zero extra cost to you.

Connect with Alesia:
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Running list of books mentioned (Doc)

This podcast was produced by Galati Media.
Proud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Transcript

Introduction

Alesia Galati 0:00

Purity culture can leave lasting scars on our relationship with our bodies and our sexualities, but it doesn't have to define us. Today we're joined by Lauren Elise Rogers to discuss how we can reclaim our sexuality and find healing through the power of the erotic imagination. Listener discretion is advised. This podcast contains mature content intended for adult audiences only. Hello, Lauren. I am so excited to have you on. When I heard you on a client's podcast, I knew right away I need to have this person on my podcast because this is going to be a juicy, delicious conversation. And I'm so excited. So if you could start by telling everyone a bit about your professional background and what it is that you do to set us up for this great anti-purity culture conversation.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

I would love nothing more. Hello, everyone. I am Lauren Leese Rogers. I am a certified holistic sexuality educator and an embodied intimacy and relationship coach. And that's a mouthful. Let me tell you a little bit about my story because I haven't always been this way. I grew up deep inside of purity culture, inside of very fundamental evangelicalism, Presbyterian deep in theology. I got married at 21. I was married for over a decade to a man who is now happily gay. I have a daughter from that first marriage. And after my marriage fell apart, and we'll save all of the sob story for a different conversation, I found myself saying, wait a second, am I now a whore because I'm no longer a virgin? And I thought, like, this can't be true. There's gotta be more to this. And so I started digging into who do I want to be as a sexual person now? Who is Lauren now? And I just fell down a rabbit hole and did the whole deconstruction thing, the whole, wait a second, I've been lied to. Wait a second, my sensuality, my sexuality is my biggest superpower. Wait a second, on the other side of this door is not depravity. On the other side of this door is liberation and incredible freedom and this incredible values-driven existence that is incredibly moral and delicious and erotic and amazing. So through this work, a lot of people obviously noticed this change inside of me and said, Lauren, can you tell us what you're doing and what you're reading and what you're becoming? And I said, you know what? I know enough in that I could help maybe another white girl like me, but I know I don't feel comfortable sharing how to become unbridled. So let me go back to school. So that's how I found myself inside of a holistic sexuality education profession. And that's when I was like, oh my goodness, I should do this as a profession. I had spent over a decade in maternal health, so working in reproductive justice, working with people from preconception through postpartum. So I was already very familiar with the inadequate education that folks were getting around sexuality, the fact that most people had huge blanks, huge gaps that they had received inaccurate or incomplete education at best. And at worst, it was just a moral code that they had been given from some grandparent. So went back to school, was like, oh, gotta start a business, hung up my shackle in 2020, 22, and thought, I wonder if anybody will understand what I am trying to offer. This option of going back and beginning to understand who you are as a sexual being and getting to the root of the origins of the sexual values that you were given as a child and weeding your sexual garden and getting into erotic literature and understanding our erotic minds. Yeah. And people jumped on board. So I am now happily employed and seeing clients around the world and working with folks, especially Purity Culture Survivors, on becoming these flourishing sexual beings, both in and outside of partnership. I work with single folks, I work with folks who've been in long-term partnerships. But one of my critical aspects that I use is understanding our erotic selves and incorporating juicy juicy smud into our readings. And so that's a little bit about who I am in the world today and what I do.

Alesia Galati 4:38

I love everything you do. I remember when I heard your story, I was like, oh my goodness, yes. Some people who listen, if you've listened back to past episodes, you know a bit about my story that I grew up in a cult, that it was a fundamentalist Christian cult. And when I say cult, I don't just mean like we went to a church that was super culty, because there are those two. Like we were in a facility, could not leave

Lauren's Personal Journey

Alesia Galati 5:00

the area kind of thing. And we were there for about 10 years. But I had the added benefit that my mother was a sex worker before we joined the cult. And so her sexual education was a little more in-depth than what they were teaching us, which was nothing. It was women wear skirts and you should not, you need to be married before you even kiss a guy and like all of that stuff. And thankfully, my mom was a little more liberated than what they were teaching us. I remember when I at this point was like, mom, look, I'm gonna do whatever I want to do. And she's like, All right, as long as you're safe, I get it. You do you. She was the one who gave me my first vibrator. Like, like if I had a daughter. What a contrast, Alicia.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

I was like, whoa. We could talk all day long.

Alesia Galati 5:53

I'm like, holy shit. Yeah. Thankfully, I had that. And I was maybe 21 when she like was like, you know, here's vibrator, have some fun kind of thing. And I was just like, okay, thanks. And so having that kind of duality of what was indoctrinated, right? But then also having those little inklings from her really helped me to be able to be a little more liberated than I think some of my counterparts were, but still had a lot of those thoughts and those feelings around like, am I in sin? Am I doing wrong? That's too kinky. You know, when you get into a relationship and you're like, is that okay or is that not? Is that something that I should be doing? And it feels good. And so being able to use romance and erotica to expand our minds and to test things out, to try new things from the safety of pages. And we're not saying that the BDSM romance that you're reading is a instruction guide. No, that's you know that what we're saying, but it can open you up to exploring things safely in your own home or in a safe space. So I love your story. I love this like trajectory that you've had. Now I remember when I was in, I went to Bible college after I was in the cult and I snuck my phone in because we weren't supposed to have our phone. So I stuck my cell phone in after we came back from a break one time. And I was like, no, I didn't bring my phone back. Nope. Don't know what you're talking about. And so I would just pull it out while I was in the cool kids dorm room. And I would be like, I found this erotica, and I have to read it to you. And that was my first exploration of like online erotica. Like I was not reading romance novels at the time, really, but like exploring this and being like, this is really titillating. Should I be reading this out loud? Oh my gosh. So many feelings and thoughts. What has been, because we always ask everybody this who's a co-host, what has been your reading adventure as you have grown out of this purity culture?

SPEAKER_00 8:11

I just love this question so much. And even as you were talking, I was like, oh my goodness, these are things I haven't thought about in forever. Okay, so I my religious background, I was homeschooled. And one of the ways in which we learned history were through these Christian historical fiction books. And sometimes these historical fiction books would have a little teenage romance in them. And I remember craving them. I would go back and reread this certain time and space, which all of a sudden I'm realizing, oh, that's why this is a core erotic theme in my life. This is why I love historical romance and erotica that is centered in historical. Wow, thanks, Alicia. Just literally pulled this out for me. But then also, have any of your other readers talked about Redeeming Love? The book that was written, it was spicy. And I also gobbled that down twice. And I remember people very much saying, Oh, you shouldn't read this, or oh, have you read Redeeming Love? And mind you, it came out when I was in my marriage to my sweet gay ex-husband. And so I was starving for sensual anything. But yeah, so that was just, well, not an unlocking of memories. So romance historical fiction when I was a teenager, very appropriately timed, and then redeeming love while I was married. And then, yeah, so in sex school, let's see. No, I would say I started reading like romance novels finally when I was free, when I was in the same thing, deconstructing my life, stumbled into traditional romance novels. Then in school, I think we started to study the erotic mind, which then just started to put all these pieces together for me of, oh my goodness, being able to differentiate between fantasy and reality is not only necessary, it's good for us. It is incredibly impactful to celebrate the things that turn you on erotically and to lean into them and to have the information about what it is that drives you as a sensual being. So once I found that permission slip, Alicia, I was I just went for it. Anything and everything, I would still say, thanks to this moment, that historical erotic uh is my favorite. These romance novels that have some time period, give them to me. I can enter into the character's life. Well, we didn't even mention this piece. I also have musical theater as my background. And so I love a good costume period drama. Give me, I don't know if my friends tease me all the time, I think the sexiest things in the world are these like chemises that are like cotton night dress things that are see-through. So give me some kind of, I don't know, talking about the outline of her nipple and areolas sh looking through some chemise. I'm there. And then we'll get into this in a little bit, but things that are power over, power under, age demographic differences, huge turn on to me. And I now know why. And yeah, but Literatica, the website is yeah, my go-to. Just my go-to for a quick little read. But if I'm gonna do a deeper dive, yeah, oh God, some historical romance muddiness, my cup of tea. Yes. And now we know why. Thanks homeschooled historical fiction.

Alesia Galati 11:49

Yes, I remember reading Redeeming Love in about a weekend as a teenager.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Y'all, it is four inches thick, wouldn't you say? Like at least Francine Rivers. Yes.

Alesia Galati 12:03

Supposed to be the story of Josea. It is interesting. And I actually saw someone recently who she works very hard in Florida to combat the banned books push. And so she was like, if you're going to ban a book about a little kid who wants to wear pink, we should ban Redeeming Love. Let me read you these bits. And so, like, she'll and it's very non-consensual or dubious consent. Yep. Yes. And so let's ban this then. Okay, here you go. Everybody's gonna be uncomfortable. You're welcome. And I just I love that energy.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Welcome. Yes. Yes, let's take you there. Let's remind you that the scriptures are all full of shady, sexy business. Yeah.

Alesia Galati 12:47

So you've mentioned the erotic mind a few times, and that is a book. So can you tell us a bit about the book? I know that it is available on Kindle Unlimited. I'm someone who has Kindle Unlimited. It's also the audiobook is available through Kindle Unlimited as well. And so I have it queued up to listen to, but can you tell everybody a bit about it if they're like, wait, I want to know more about the erotic mind?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Yeah. And I was literally on my walk earlier re-listening to some of my favorite passages. It's Dr. Jack Moran. And he did extensive research on our sexual fantasies, which is some of my favorite stuff inside the book, and our peak sexual encounters. And there's even a quiz at the end. So if you're a good old quiz lover like mine, like me, you can go to the end of the book and see literally what he based his research upon. And what he found is that human beings have these core erotic themes. And what I love to imagine it being is almost an umbrella. So we have this umbrella of core erotic themes above our heads. And within that, we have different narratives that really tend to turn us on. And what I view that is, is again, a superpower. Like, why wouldn't we want to know exactly what turns us on? And so he found that of these core erotic themes, there were these four cornerstones, and they are as follows. The first one is the presence of longing and anticipation, right? That thing that's just out of reach, this like long-distance lover thing, this, ooh, I want. They are so close but so far away type of thing. Princess in a Tower, every single fucking Disney movie, right? Like you name it, we have a lot of longing and anticipation. All of Song of Solomon in the Christian scriptures, longing and anticipation. Number two, violating prohibitions, some form of the naughtiness factor, some form of no, no, no, no, no. Violating prohibitions, very common. Number three, this search for power, right? This idea that we want to take power over or power under. Very common for folks who grew up in some type of authoritative like control. Then the final one is sometimes confusing to folks, and that is overcoming ambivalence. And I find this one really fascinating because it is my personal one. So I like to equate it to you're walking through the halls of your junior high school, except I was homeschooled, so this doesn't really work for me. And you see the cute boy and you really want him to notice you, or you see the cute girl and you really want him to notice you, but they're ambivalent

Understanding Purity Culture

SPEAKER_00 15:30

towards you, and that just revs your engines all the more. All right. For me, this works because I was told that kind of like boys wanted one thing and one thing only. And so who you should really be attracted to is boys who are respectful or who didn't seem to want to devour you. So it's so natural that I just found myself falling in love with gay men because they weren't sending their sexual energy towards me. But in my body, it made me want to overcome their ambivalence. Why will work, work, work to make you like me? And I always say it's so funny that my first kiss, my first love, and my first marriage were all gay men. Just the irony, the irony. And this is where we can start to see that the things that turn us on the most don't always make for the best partnerships, which again is why I think that this is a superpower to know about us. It is one thing to know what turns you on. It's another thing to put yourself in a relationship where someone is totally ambivalent towards you and doesn't care about you and doesn't care for you. It's another thing to put yourself in a relationship where you're always longing for your partner because they're just out of reach. I don't want people in these partnerships, but boy oh boy, do I want us to read these stories. Yeah. And in the book of The Last Thing I'll Say is Jack Moran gives his erotic equation, which I think is just super powerful. And that is attraction plus obstacle equals excitement. And if you read any smut, you're gonna see attraction plus obstacle, and you're gonna see the excitement. I like to challenge my clients the next time they pick up their smutty read to see if they can locate one or more of the cornerstones inside what they're reading, because that starts to become, again, just this superpower erotically. Because if we need to be turned on, we want to be turned on, we can just boop put together the makings of our perfect erotic fantasy. So, yes, that's the more the synopsis.

Alesia Galati 17:31

Oh my God. Okay, so I have tropes for every single one of these, okay? Because like my brain was working as you were talking through them. And so if you find yourself leaning, and so I'm gonna say each of them, but I might need you to come back with what the what his version is. And so if you find yourself leaning towards one of these, or like being like, oh yes, I get really turned on when I read this, or this is really good and juicy for me, then that's probably, and I'm not certified, go talk to Lauren, but this might be where you're leaning.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

So, okay. Yes. And again, this is like taking a cosma quiz or something, right? This isn't, it's not and it's just really fun to see and to go, oh my goodness, yeah, I've been into this thing since I was a teenager, or oh, that's where that comes from. So anyway, yes.

Alesia Galati 18:17

Okay, so the first one is slow burn, that building of the anticipation. If you love a good slow burn, I do not. I'm like, oh, they're banging on page one, sign me up. Where is the one star review that's like they started screwing right away? I'm like, instant bye. So you might if you're the first one, a bit of a slow burn. The next one, anything that's a forbidden romance, maybe it's a step sibling or a professor and a student or the boss and the assistant, right? Any of those dynamics where it's like we shouldn't, but we really, really want to, any of those. The third one, those power dynamics that could be a little bit of that forbidden as well with the professor and the student. But then it also got me thinking of if you like to read books where there's a female DOM or where there's a bit of BDSM or breath play or like some type of overpowering, maybe some consensual non-consent or like chasing anything like that, right? That might be your thing. Yes. And then for the last one, I was thinking he falls first, or usually we say he falls first. Or like one person like is in love with this character 20% in the book, and the other person does not get it to like 80%, and then they're in love. And so that's where I was thinking. Like, as you were talking, I was like, I can pinpoint each of these tropes.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Yes. And I love it when a client goes, uh, yeah, that's my favorite. That's always been my favorite. Usually, y'all, you'll see it in your favorite movies, your favorite rom comes, like all of a sudden, sorry, you're gonna see it everywhere. You're gonna be like, there it is again, there it is again. And again, what I think is so empowering is I'll get clients who come to me and say, Why do I always keep dating such and such a type of person? This is some of the initial work we do. Because Jack continually says throughout this book that pleasure is the greatest antidote to pain. Our bodies want to heal. And what's fascinating is that when we can encourage them to heal in the right ways through reading and nurturing the erotic imagination and differentiating between fantasy and reality, then we can start to heal in the real world and nurture our imaginations in the fantasy world.

Alesia Galati 20:46

Oh, so good. All right, we will talk about fantasy because I definitely want to go there. But before we do, I don't want to lose people because I understand, we understand what it's like to grow up in pur purity culture. And if you're new to SMUT or you're secretly dabbling, this is for the secret dabblers as well, then you might be feeling a little bit of friction as we're talking about this. And I know some of the things that you were talking about in the podcast I was listening to, and we'll make sure we link that one in the show notes as well, because that conversation was so good with Gabriella. There were parts where I was like, am I allowed to do that? That is so interesting. I've never thought of it that way. And so I want us to be open to that. So let's talk purity culture first. What are those key beliefs that tend to be? So if we're not even sure if we're in have been in current purity culture, those beliefs that we see in your clients that are coming up out of that purity culture.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

Yes. So let's break it down. Purity cultures often contain some of the following guidelines. Number one, your worth is dependent upon your sexual purity as. Abstinence is strongly encouraged, if not mandated, until marriage. Marriage is the end goal, and marriage usually looks like between one man and one woman, so a ton of heteronormativity. Usually there is an element of your body belonging to someone else other than yourself. Whether that is God, whether that is your father, whether that is some form of pastor or youth pastor. There is a strong emphasis on the female form being the temptress, the seductress, the downfall of the male, of the masculine form. Men are preached to that sex is always going to be something they want and that they need to fight against, that any form of sex other than procreative sex inside of the bounds of marriage is wrong and sinful, and that women are going to be the cause of your stumbling until you are married. And then once you are married, you should only have eyes for your wife, nothing else ever outside of that. Women, on the other hand, are not educated about their pleasure. They are quite often not even explained that orgasm could be something that they want to achieve, that masturbation is even a thing that women do, that anything outside of penis and vagina sex inside of marriage is not anything they should ever want or be interested in. Children are the greatest reward, and they are to be the thing that is the output of the sex that you do have once you are inside of marriage. I think I've covered the majority of it. The confusing parts are that oftentimes within the different sects or within the different cults, you will find little minute rules that you don't even know are rules until you've bumped into them. And then you're in deeper trouble for something that you didn't know. So some purity cultures go as far, this is the one I was in. You weren't allowed to hold hands, there was no touching between anyone of the opposite sex. Again, so much heteronormativity. Then also in some of them, it'll go so far, uh modesty and different elements, right? Not showing your body in different ways, shape, and forms, wearing skirts, not wearing skirts. I mean, you name it, you're gonna find different elements, but it all leads to, again, usually the person in the female form being the temptress and men being told they're constantly gonna be tempted and that sex is only good inside of marriage.

Alesia Galati 24:44

Yeah. You summed that up so well. That is so frustrating. And we see it a lot with the and going to try to be as specific as possible with this because my goal here is not to harm the very judgmental, clean romance only. Very specific here. If you are someone who only likes to read closed door romance, because that's how we talk about it, not clean. It's not dirty. We don't use the word clean because the sex is not dirty. Okay. No. When you're judgmental about what other people are reading, and I want to make sure that we reference back to the episode on asexuality as well, because there are some people who have a different relationship with how they feel sexually. And if they don't want to read open door or smuddy romance, then that is their choice and that is okay.

Healing Through Erotic Literature

Alesia Galati 25:45

And there are those who are asexual that can use smuddy romance as a way to explore this without having to physically touch someone else or because they don't want to. And so go back and listen to that episode. It is super eye-opening. That one's a good one to understanding more of this. But yeah, these clean romance only, I'm gonna call them girlies because most of them are. It's really frustrating seeing this in the romance space because there is so much power in what we read to liberate us. I cannot tell you how many conversations I've had with people who are have been in purity culture and said that romance released them from this. They were able to explore their sexuality in such an impactful way. And that goes back to these fantasies that we then can create in our minds. So let's go into these fantasies. And I love what you said about fantasies versus realities, but then also how women view fantasies a little differently. And again, we're using gender normative terms here today, but however you feel on either side, completely up to you. How men and women tend to feel very different about fantasies. And so let's go ahead and give me all the juice.

SPEAKER_00 27:05

Okay. Fantasies are some of my favorite things to talk about, save things. Okay, so y'all, this research still blows my mind. Okay, so when people in male bodies are fantasizing, they are usually fantasizing about the sexual partner that they're engaging with and the enjoyment and the rapture on their face of the pleasure that they are giving them, which is just beautiful. Celebrate it, it's so cool. Oftentimes, oftentimes, it is their primary sex partner that they're fantasizing about, which is beautiful. Or someone, yes, that they came in contact with or a movie star that they find so attractive. Beautiful, love it, so sexy. Okay, get this. Women, people in female bodies don't do the same thing. All right. So in female-centered fantasies, women tend to be the center of their own erotic focus. So this is so cool. They will put themselves in stories which hi, hello, this is why we love smut so much. Okay. We are experiencing the narrative that the character is experiencing. And this is why it is fucking healing. Pardon my language, okay? Because we are literally feeling out the experience, and the subconscious does not know the difference. So when we are craving these adventures and these risks and we go to this adventurous and very risky places in our minds, our bodies are getting to experience this. In female fantasies, when they survey women, they don't see the faces of the people who are having sex with them, not at all. Oftentimes, they will have lots of people of similar genders or of the opposite genders. And when there are people in the same gender, so there's more breasts around, they are imagining what those breaths would be feel felt like. And so like they're putting themselves up in the different people so that they can experience the different sensations. I like to say that the moment a person in a female body experiences security and safety, which is a thing that we crave and need as human beings. It is the moment where she starts to go, okay, now I need some adventure and risks. Women are more inherently ravenous and insatiable. And we just need to stand in it and celebrate it because it is delicious. I love fantasy for the sake of. So when we look biologically at human beings, we have this season of limerence, which lasts 1.5 to two years with a sexual partner. And that is because biologically, we were supposed to a long time ago draw a mate to ourselves with our sexual superpowers, have him impregnate us, and then stay infatuated with us long enough to protect us while we grew a child and then nursed this child to a stable age. Then we wanted this sexual partner to fall out of infatuation with us so that we could go use our sexy superpowers on another man and diversify the species. And it's fascinating. And so when you see folks who go, oh, yeah, it's just not as good as it was about a year and a half ago, I'm like, uh-huh, science, science. Now, here's the cool thing. During that one and a half to two years, we often start to put into our relationships routines and rituals that lead to a sense of pair-bondedness, which when you look at other research, we all know that we survive better in pairs and groups. So it does, it really is good for us from an attachment theory perspective to have secure relationships in our lives. And so I'm not saying throw long-term partnership out the window. No, it can be really good for us. It's really juicy and sweet and fun. Now, juicy, sweet, and fun is not exactly sexy smutty. And so, what I love to encourage folks is it is okay to simultaneously be nurturing healthy partnership and be exploring fantasies with your partner. And so I encourage folks to lean into the differences between their partner and themselves. My partner does not have the same cornerstones as myself. I have a lot of these power dynamics, a lot of these age differentials, and they are part of me reclaiming my sexuality that for so long didn't get to be mine, didn't get to be mine. But when I share a fantasy with him, I try to incorporate pieces that are really erotic to him. And that's because I celebrate his core erotic themes and he celebrates mine. And our minds are just amazing.

Alesia Galati 31:55

I love that so much. Yeah, I'm even thinking about my husband. We have been together for 12 years now. We have two kids together. And yeah, my brain does not work how his does. He'll like text me in the middle of the day, usually about five times a day, what he wants to do to me. And I'm just like, I'm trying to work, bro. Like, can we do this later? So he's imagining all these things that he wants to do with me.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

And that's you focused. Yeah. Like, can you see it? And you're like, I'm not in a sexy space. I can't even, you're I cannot even right. No, it's literally the differences between erotic self-focus and then other focus. So yeah. Yeah. We celebrate his mind. But a boy, oh boy.

Alesia Galati 32:50

And then giving book recommendations based off of these spicy things that my husband wants to do to me. Okay. It works. Right. I love it. And the fans love it too. But even thinking about when we are having sex, like where my mind goes, or the things that I might imagine him say to me, even though he's not saying them, but I might imagine him saying to me to get me there. And sometimes I, at least before I listened to your episode with Gabriella, I was like, is that wrong of me to put things into that sacred, I'm using quotes here, sacred moment between a husband and a wife. Does that take away from it? But then as you were talking through how women's fantastical and fantasy minds work, I was like, oh, I just, okay, I need it.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

And that's it. It is, I would argue, putting you more in the moment. Even more in the moment. It is amazing. I'm sure you've experienced this, right? You'll imagine that he's saying something really specific. And then you have this other moment where you look at him and you're like, oh, I love him. And then you go back to this other space, right? Like we are so capable. And the one thing that gets in the way of our sexual enjoyment and sexual pleasure is being a critic of our own sexual pleasure. If there's anything we need to kick out of the bedroom, it's that critic. Instead, I encourage individuals, if they have an open relationship with their partner, to share these dirty things, right? To share these like really interesting spaces that our imaginations go to. Let me back up because I said the word dirty and you were so beautifully clear earlier about differentiating. Yeah. When I said dirty, it's like a celebration. Dirty. Because I love playing in the dirt. So I just wanted to give a little description there that I have done a lot of work to dig in to the dirt and to mess and to mud and to the way that for so long we have celebrated clean. And so it is part of my reclamation to say no to this purity, clean cleanliness is next to godliness mindset. I love the dirt. So when I say dirty, it's like my favorite word. So when you say dirty, though, it may be different. And I love that you're emphasizing that because yeah, for those coming out of a purity culture world, it can be a scary word. It

Communication and Fantasies

SPEAKER_00 35:20

really can. But so I encourage sharing different things with our partners about our minds, sharing and affirming that it is the security we feel with them that gives us the permission to even imagine these things, which then in a healthy way strokes their ego. I do not think that is some type of molecoddling. I think it is a necessary reassurance of, hey, you and me, this thing we got going here, has enabled me to have an even more beautiful imagination than I did before. Thanks. Everybody should get to hear that. Everyone. It's really good. And then partners can share too. And just fair warning, if you are married to a person in a male body, it might be, oh no, baby, I just always imagine you. Or these like deep things. And that is beautiful too. That is beautiful. You can give your partner, if you want to, more permission to invite different fantastical elements, or you could talk to them about these four cornerstones of eroticism and see if they live in their bodies too. But yeah, it's definitely really fun to lean into.

Alesia Galati 36:29

Yes, I love it. You mentioned like having these conversations. If we are in a longer-term relationship, and yeah, our husbands might know or our partners might know what we're reading, right? They're like, sure, I'll buy you more books. Of course, it seems to be working. But how can we have these take it a step further with these conversations?

SPEAKER_00 36:50

So I was mentioning Literatica, the website, a little earlier. One of my favorite things to do is read a story that turns me on to no end and then send the link to my partner and say, this is what I was reading earlier, or just taking a screenshot of a paragraph and just that. Just that. I think what this does, and let's go back to this erotic self-focus thing, is that for us, it is allowing us to go, mm-hmm, this is what turned me on. So reliving it, right? And saying, let me draw you into my fantasy world, then what it does for the partner, it's go, oh my goodness, my sexual partner's turned on by this thing. Yay. Okay. I mean, it's got a different outcome, but a shared benefit. And I think that is just so delicious. Yeah, I think I it is such an easy thing. And it's so fun. If, like, your partner's at work or out with buddies, oh my God, favorite time to send, because Literature, y'all, will just send the smutty title of the thing I'm reading. And it'll be like this one I was just reading was this mother wanted her the her college-age just her college-age daughter's boyfriend to stop having so much sex with her daughter so she could study more because she was applying to grad school. So she was like, I've got to have sex with her boyfriend. Oh my God. It was everything I need. Check, check, check, check, check. Oh my God. So turned me on. And so, yeah, totally sensitive my partner. Does it did he read it? Oh no. Doesn't matter. It was literally a celebration of my sexuality, of this is turning me on. And sure, some of them I know he reads because I'll say this one was really hot. And I'll know it's a shared narrative that we both love, but no, some of them I know he doesn't. But it's a I am a sexual being, which I think for those who are in long-term partnerships, who have children. Oh my goodness, we haven't even talked about this mother versus lover concept, this idea that can a mother be a lover? Can a mother be an erotic human being? And so I think it's just like this stamp of I was an erotic person today. Thank you. It's a reminder to all, right? It's a celebration. And I think we should do it all the time.

Alesia Galati 39:19

Yes, love it. All right. So for the folks who are in partnerships with themselves, what are some things that they can do to explore that sexuality a little further? And maybe they might be a little stagnant in how they're feeling. And they're like, I'm craving that excitement. I'm craving that new, that novelty. What can they do?

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Get the erotic mind by Jack Moran and start really leaning into and celebrating who you are as an erotic creature. I think really feeling into it, suspending judgment, suspending criticism for just enough time to get so curious is step number one. Jack Moran has these seven steps to sexual healing that I think are so cool. And number one is to clarify your goals and motivations. So let's go through these. So if you're in a solo partnership with your sexy self, number one, get clear on your goals and motivations, right? I always tell Yans, and you were so beautifully saying this earlier, that the desire to be unsexual is a beautiful desire too, when it's a choice. When it's a choice. So if your goal in the moment is to see if you are a slightly more sexual human being, then great, that's a good enough goal for me. And it doesn't need to have an outcome per se. It could be a curious goal. So clarify your goals and motivations, then cultivate some self-affirmations, get some people around you, listen to podcasts like this one that affirm your right to be a sexual human being. Then number three is hilariously navigate to the gray zone. Prepare, my friends. Okay? The gray zone is a weird place. And once we start exploring a new territory, all of the landmarks start to fade away that we are used to. And so if you feel a little like you are a stranger in a foreign land, that's okay. That is okay. Ground yourself with the things that you know to be true about yourself. Don't give up yet. Know that you need to navigate that gray zone. It's very normal and it means you're on to something. Number four is mourn your losses. So sometimes when we start to lean into more of our sexuality, more of our erotic selves, we start to realize how much was stolen from us. I know I had that experience deeply, and that can be grievous. And I encourage you not to skip this step. Do some deep journaling work. Re into your heart. Make sure that you, as a human being, feel the value that you deserve and tend to those wounds. Then, next step, come to your senses. And I love this one. It's like, wake up. Okay, wake up. Now it's time to re-engage with the world. Now it's time to see, oh my goodness, yes, this form of smut really is turning me on. And I'm gonna start to claim this as my own. Start to come to your senses. Notice how your body's coming alive and what's not doing it for you. It's also okay to be like, you know what? That's just not my cup of tea. I tell clients all the time, this is like a sifting exercise, keeping what you like and letting the rest go. You might just like Bridgerton type stuff for the rest of your life. And guess what? Yay! We celebrate you. There's no judgment there. So truly come to your senses. Then you start to risk new adventures and really fun things, and you'll feel it. You will feel bold enough to be like, oh, maybe I will read that vampire romance. That sounds really interesting. Risk them. Then the last step is to integrate your discoveries. And my loves, we get to do this over and over again in our lives, and it is amazing. And I would actually say that doing it as a solo person is the best time. I tell my partner again and again, you would not have met this human had she not done all of this work on her own. It is a gift to do it on our own because we're not drastically changing in front of a partner. We are learning ourselves as sexual beings. And then we get to present this new and improved package to those that we choose, and it's so much fun.

Alesia Galati 43:40

I love those seven steps because it's a journey, right? And I'm even thinking like because my brain always goes to like, I have a book recommendation for that. Good. As we were talking through, like, oh, I only like Bridgerton style ones, but I want to maybe get outside of that. And you mentioned vampires, and I was like, there are monster. Regency romances, those are great options for a single perfect.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Like literally. At least and I could just do this back and forth the entire time. There is, there is stuff for you. Yes.

Alesia Galati 44:13

And it's okay to find those things that are like not okay for you, right? Like that one step that you said where you find the things that are like, nope, not really feeling that. I actually said that to my husband recently because he said something. And you'll be able to infer once I get to where I'm going. But I was like, if I don't like the idea of orcs being nutritional, I don't want to hear it from you. If I don't feel like that about the romance I read, it is not a turn-off when you say it. I love you, but that's a that is a hard no.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

And this is just as beneficial as knowing what does turn us on. Knowing what turns us off. Knowing what turns us on, lovely.

Closing Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Knowing what turns us off, also lovely. And it's okay to say it to our partners. On the podcast that we already talked about that we're going to link with Gabriella, I'm talking about this film, baby girl. And one of the things that broke my heart most about these characters is that the married couple didn't feel like they could talk about the female character's erotic mind. And that she felt so much shame and guilt about having these certain sexual fantasies and desires. She loved her husband. You could tell they had a lovely, lovely relationship, loved their children. And I think this idea that we have to have one or the other is so, so non-beneficial. No, we get to read all the smut and raise healthy children. In erotic mind, he talks about raising children. And that we are our children's first sex educators. We are. And if we have not done the work to integrate our own sexuality and to understand the way our erotic minds work, we're doing a disservice to our children. And the more discomfort we have with the subject, research continually shows that we don't talk to our children about it because of our own discomfort. So we owe it. If you have kiddos, if you have kids in your life, you owe it to yourself to get clear on these different things and to be okay with it, to be celebratory of it.

Alesia Galati 46:23

Yes, that's so important. We have a seven and ten-year-old. So the 10-year-old, we've had those starting conversations because right around the corner, and having them with both of us. And if there are things that he wants to talk to his dad about that he does not want me to know about, that's okay too. Right? Like as long as my husband and I are on the same page of the kind of education that we're gonna give them. And if they do want to have a female partner later, please come talk to me also. And so having this conversation, and it is uncomfortable, but also I like I know how important it is. If my mom hadn't had those conversations with me, it would have been a different story.

SPEAKER_00 47:12

The one piece of sex advice I got was the day before I got married. My mother was, this sounds so tragic, dying of pancreatic cancer, which is why we moved our wedding up. And she said, take care of your husband's needs and everything will be okay. That was it. Never ever had been educated on orgasm, on female pleasure, on the clitoris, on anything. Now I've always been a like ravenous reader, so I did read things on my own and figure some things out. Yeah, but had never learned about sexual compatibility, had never even fathomed that my sweet gay ex-husband could have suppressed his attraction to men for decades and decades because of his own indoctrination. So yes, we need to do this work and we need to lean into these sexual fantasies and lean into our eroticism, not away from it, not away from it. Because what we find, and those who've come out of purity culture will know that when we try to be so pure and clean and this and that, what can most often happens is it comes out sideways, some other place, which is what harms, right? Deceit harms, secrecy harms. It is really important that we get clear on how we're made and celebrate all of us. Nine body souls.

Alesia Galati 48:43

Oh, I love that so much. Lauren, this has been so much fun. Oh, I loved it. So thank you so much for being on. If people are like, I need to know more about Lauren and I need to work with Lauren and check out her stuff, where can people find you, get to know you, and hang out with you?

SPEAKER_00 48:59

Well, come find me on Instagram. Go to sex underscore ed underscore for underscore you. You can search sex ed for you, but they forever shadow banning my account. So you good luck. But I'm there. 20,000 of us are all there. And then you can also go to sexed4u.com forward slash free consult. I would live to chat with you about the work that I do. If you're like, oh my goodness, does she do one-on-one work? Yes. Do I do partner work? Yes. Do I work with parents? Yes. It's my favorite. My form of education is individualized every step of the way. I do a long intake with my clients and we create goals and objectives that are purely for you. And it's literally my favorite thing on earth. Um, I have one of these aura rings that like tracks my stress. And on my client days, we're all see like seven clients back to back. It's like, what'd you do today that was more restorative? And I'm like, I work a set with my clients. I am truly living a pain-to-purpose story. And I would love, love, love to talk with you in a non-judgmental 15-minute space where you can tell me about the obstacles that you're looking to overcome or the frustrations that you're having or the things you're really wanting to integrate. And you've been like, I've been looking for a person just oddly like you. If you listen to this podcast and that came to your mind, I would love to work with you.

Alesia Galati 50:20

Perfect. And we'll make sure we have that linked in the show notes and description for anyone who's like, what was that link again? We got you. It's okay. And we'll have links for the erotic mind as well as any books or the movie we mentioned throughout this. So, Lauren, thank you so much for being on. I appreciate you.

SPEAKER_00 50:38

You're so welcome, Elise. Thank you for having me here.