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Today’s guest is Kiana Reeves, Certified Somatic Sex Educator & Sexological Bodyworker, Embodiment and Intimacy Coach, Certified STREAM Pelvic Health Practitioner, Full Spectrum Doula, and Mother of two delightful and wild humans. For over a decade Kiana has been working at the intersection of sex, embodiment, intimacy, pleasure, birth, and wellbeing. Her work is a holistic & somatic approach to the emotional, biological, personal, ancestral, and spiritual nature of sex & intimacy. In this episode, we chat all things intimacy and get her recommendations for keeping your sex life alive even after baby.
Resources
Ergobaby | ergobaby.com • instagram.com/ergobaby • tiktok.com/@ergobabyofficial
Kiana Reevs | kianareeves.com • instagram.com/kiana.reeves • tiktok.com/@kiana.reeves
Rahi Chun | somaticsexualwholeness.com/aboutrahi
Foria | foriawellness.com use code ERGOBABY for 20% off your order
Transcript
Introduction
Brandi: I feel like I should have like candlelight back here,
Kiana: Yeah.
Brandi: Right here, like leather bound books.
Kiana: Leather bound books. Candles, vegan leather-bound books.
Brandi: All right. Moms and dads. We wanted to launch this podcast with a bang, and I think we succeeded. This episode is going to be so helpful and insightful for your relationships, and we wanted to give you a quick heads up. We are discussing sensitive topics throughout this episode, so it’s at your discretion to decide if you want to grab those headphones before we dive in.
Welcome to the Life with Baby podcast.
I’m Brandi Sellerz-Jackson, author, life doula, mama and you’re host of the Life with Baby podcast and I am super excited about today’s guest. When I think about this guest, I think of a safe space. I think of someone that you can ask whatever question you want it to know. She’s that person that if you have a question about your body, what’s happening with this thing? Especially after baby, she is that person that can answer it, and especially when it comes to our sexual pleasure.
She’s that girl.
Her name is Kiana Reeves. For over a decade, Kiana has been working at the intersection of sex, embodiment, intimacy, pleasure, birth and well-being. Her work is a holistic and somatic approach to the emotional, biological, personal, ancestral and spiritual nature of sex and intimacy. She is a certified somatic sex educator and sexual logical body worker embodiment at and intimacy coach, certified stream pelvic health practitioner, full spectrum doula and mother of two delightful and wild humans.
Kiana: I’m so excited to be here. I’m great. Thank you. It’s the highest compliment and the highest honor to get to do this work.
What does a Sexologist do?
Brandi: Yes, it is. Alright, so, tell us about you. What is a somatic sex educator?
Kiana: A somatic sex educator is basically a fancy way of saying hands on sex education. Understanding pleasure, understanding anatomy, understanding what we want through practical relationship with the body. But it’s really a body-based approach to sex education.
Brandi: When you’re with a client, what does that look like? That hands on approach whether you’re instructing them or visa versa?
Kiana: Yeah, so it depends on the setting. For a few years I had a private practice where I was actually doing hands on, gloved, intra vaginal pelvic mapping work with people
Pelvic Mapping & Erogenous Zones
Brandi: Now, what is pelvic mapping? Because I’ve never heard that term before. And I’m sure that our listener is like, what is pelvic mapping?
Kiana: I’ve heard people call it genital cartography, but if you think of mapping, a map is the geography. And so, it’s really going in and going like, here are the labia. Like, here’s the outer labia, for example. This is how they feel. These are the erectile tissue beds that live underneath. This is the type of touch you can explore. Getting into really understanding sensation and familiarizing yourself completely with the anatomy.
Most of us were never taught both from an anatomical perspective, but then also like, what does my body like here? And that’s the big part. It’s like, yes, no, the parts that what is what’s possible here and how does it function.
With couples, I have worked with couples hands on in mapping each other like, you know, someone’s partner walking through a vulva and all of the pleasure zones and learning what they are, learning how to touch them and helping them communicate about what really feels good, you know?
And that’s actually, that’s like one of the most amazing experiences to be in the room and people like, my gosh, I’ve never known that about my body. And then, you know, her partner going like, I’ve never even seen this before. You know, it’s cool. It’s really amazing.
Brandi: A whole new world. We don’t really know our bodies.
Kiana: A hundred percent. Yeah.
Brandi: I don’t know if you’ve seen on the internet where they go around and they ask different people “where is the clitoris”?
Kiana: It’s somewhere there.
Brandi: This is all of it.
Kiana: Yeah, yeah. Not to mention, like, where’s the urethra? It like, absolutely no idea where the pee comes from. Nobody knows.
Brandi: They don’t know any of that. Well, it’s funny, I’ve told this story before on the internet, but I remember like, not knowing that I had three holes until I was engaging for the first time in sex. But what really blew my mind is that I didn’t know. I was in my 20s finding out. I remember sitting there questioning my entire life. And I know I’m not the only one.
Body Changes after Birth
Kiana: Yes. Exactly. No, you’re actually in like a pretty, I would say, large percentage of people who also have never looked at their vulva or never seen, like really gone and gotten intimate.
Brandi: Like let me look and see what’s going on down there.
Kiana: Yeah. Particularly after birth. You know, like that is one of the biggest reintroductions to our bodies is our how our bodies have changed after birth, you know, whether we’ve had a vaginal birth or a belly birth, it’s like you’re still changing in that area and your pleasure is changing in that area.
Brandi: Tell me about it.
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Brandi: So, Kiana, you talk a lot about unlocking sexual pleasure. How do we do this? And do you feel that it’s a little bit more difficult for women and why?
Unlocking Multiple Orgasms
Kiana: So I, I don’t want to say it’s more difficult. We actually have massive access to sexual pleasure and biologically speaking, we are capable of having multiple, multiple, multiple orgasms without the refractory period of needing to like wait and rest.
Brandi: Can you tell me? Okay, you can’t just say that and like skip by. I’m gonna like get out my notes and a pen okay tell me more about multiple orgasms. How can I make this happen all the time?
Kiana: Yeah, yeah. Okay. You can think about a climax like a crescendo or a climax peak in the body. And so, a lot of what we’re doing when we work with pleasure is being able to hold more capacity like in our nervous systems. Capacity to hold charge in our system, because increasing pleasure means increasing activation, even though you can be very relaxed and very open as you build, tension builds, charge builds.
And so when you train your body through practices like edging where you really stretch arousal, you come to the point where you’re about to orgasm and then kind of open, relax, open, soften more and then go back in practices like that or just practices where, you know, you can come to climax and then you, you stay, you try to maintain the field by finding more pleasure in new ways and keeping breathing, things like that.
You know, tantra is great at this. There are other practices that are great at this, but it’s being able to sustain highly, highly charged, pleasurable fields for extended periods. And our body really has the capacity to do that. Men and people with penises can, of course, train their bodies to do that, but they ejaculate in a way that often requires them to go in some kind of rest.
But we don’t. We actually, once we have a clitoral orgasm, which is usually the most accessible – you know, about 80% of female body folks need clitoral stimulation to reach orgasm, whether that’s a clitoral orgasm or a combination orgasm, but that’s usually like the front door of pleasure. And then it brings you into such heightened states of arousal that if you learn how to stimulate the G-spot, the A-spot, the cervix, the K-spot, the breasts, any other of these zones that can really bring you into orgasmic states, you can start to not only extend the orgasm you’re having, but have multiple peaks of that orgasm or different orgasms from different areas. That’s multiple orgasms.
There’s a few things you have to work with. One is that charge we were talking about – it’s being able to hold charge in the body. So, a lot of people will be like, well, I have one orgasm, and then it’s like way too intense or I go numb.
That’s the point where you dive i to breath and you breathe into what’s pleasurable and you find what kind of touch is still feeling good. And you keep it moving in your body,
And then the second thing would be like, a lot of us can work with sensation discovery intra vaginally in a way that starts to expand how much we actually feel internally. There’s a whole lineage of work called de armoring that can help to re-sensitize areas that are either, through scar tissue or through kind of emotional scar tissue, emotional armoring. We’ve lost some access to sensation that’s possible there. That process can bring and re-sensitize areas that are truly orgasmic areas that we might not have access to currently.
What is De-Armoring?
Brandi: Now what is dearmoring? I’ve never heard of that before. I mean along with – you said the K spot and like woah, first off. What is this!?
Kiana: Yeah, yeah. The K spot. Yeah. Okay. So dearmoring is a really, really powerful tool for helping the body basically release emotional or physical, you know, we call it armor. I put it in quotes. You think of armor. It’s like a barrier, a protective barrier your body puts up. We have a highly correlated nervous system. When you look at, you know, fight, flight, freeze, fine – all of the things that happen in our bodies, we hold that often in our bodies, right? We can hold armor anywhere in our bodies. And so dearmoring is really working with the nervous system, working with a hands-on approach to being with particular areas of the body so that they can – it sounds kind of woo, but it’s like tell their story.
And so it’s a very somatic approach to inquire around. Let’s say there’s numbness, right? A lot of people giving birth deal with numbness or pain either one of those things. So you go to the area that’s numb, right? And for some people it’s using tools, somatic tools would be like breath, sound, and movement.
And so, you bring in breath, you bring it, you’re sounding it. What imagery is coming up? What emotions are coming up when I touch this? Deep tools of noticing and tracking your proprioception and your entire perception, your internal world, and where you are in space and time to let the body start to kind of go like, there’s something here. And it unfolds in these beautiful ways. Often there’s big waves of emotion, huge emotional releases, numb areas can start to come online because numbness is actually correlated to freeze response.
So to come out of a freeze response, often unwinding, you go through a little bit of like irritation. Sometimes there can be a little pain, sometimes there can be, like it feels like sandpaper or a little like, like shards of glass. And then the tissue can start to really heal and come back online through the nerve endings.
Pleasure and pleasurable lovemaking, like deep lovemaking with someone you trust is one of the best ways to dearmor an area – of all of the tools you can use for dearmoring. So slow, highly aroused, very safe lovemaking where there’s deep presence can help the body open in such an incredible way and release emotion that needs to move.
Brandi: That’s so good wow. I need to sit with that.
What are some of the most common questions you get in regards to parents and their sex lives. Because we all know it can be interesting after baby.
“We don’t have time for sex anymore.”
Kiana: One is like, the question, like we don’t have time anymore and like, how do you even make the time or find the time? Let’s just say the first two years are extraordinarily challenging in terms of being able to find the space.
My response to that is even for both partners to actually have that kind of window in their understanding of like, at least the two first years, we’re going to have a pretty big need to be intentional about our sex life. Like we will put it on the calendar. And even if we’re not having sex, we’re creating spaces of intimacy very regularly every day.
In that question, it is often correlated to libido and low desire, especially if you’re breastfeeding or if you had a traumatic birth experience or a really intense birth experience. Those things can kind of go hand-in-hand to either changing the hormonal kind of like, biological draw towards libido that does have a sex hormone component or, you know, your system is so hijacked from the birth experience that you can’t really get into the state of deactivation where arousal starts to feel possible or desire starts to feel possible.
So those are the main questions. Do you want me to give answers for the questions that I see?
Brandi: Yeah!
No Libido? Tapping into your Responsive Sexual Desire
Kiana: So around libido and timing, there’s studies that show around hugging and kissing that it actually very, very much impacts our sense of intimacy and connection with partner.
I don’t know the numbers specifically, but it’s like even like a five second hug or a 30 second hug once or twice a day deep, deeply signals that someone is there with you.
And then there’s the six-minute makeout or something. But you can put a timer on and the baby’s asleep. You’re right there. You can kiss like you did when you were teenagers for 6 minutes.
And like, never underestimate the power of eye contact and just looking lovingly into each other’s eyes. So even if you’re just kissing and, like, looking lovingly into each other’s eyes and you’re not having sex, it’s going to fill a place in your heart that needs intimacy in a different way, and it will make you more available to connection.
Be available for conversations with each other that discuss what feels good for your body. Because often there is pain or discomfort with penetration, especially right around that six-week mark when people are, you know, your doctor says it’s fine and, no thank you.
Brandi: Which by the way, it’s kind of annoying because it’s like six weeks.
Kiana: Totally. Yeah,
Brandi: No go have sex. But what if I’m not, not ready yet. I’m not even wanting to yet.
Kiana: Exactly.
Brandi: I think too, people underestimate, especially if you’re breastfeeding or nursing or chestfeeding – when it comes to how that affect your sex drive.
Kiana: Big time. this is a really under talked about saying because most people are like, I have no libido or they go into the mode that’s like – they override their lack of desire and just like do it for their partner. Really what you want to do is be working with responsive desire.
Responsive desire is a different way to access your own desire from the way that you probably, we all were trained that desire exists. We’re taught about spontaneous desire, which is the thing that’s like we see in movies. You’re like, I’m turned on and now I want you and then we get aroused. Responsive desire is, when you touch my hips or you come up and nuzzle your face in my neck, I’m noticing a response in my body.
You’re finding the access points that your body has that start to turn your body on. And then brain comes kind of later.
Brandi: That’s so good too because I think a lot of people feel as if something’s wrong with them. So I think it’s a conversation that needs to be had that ya, you’re not the only one that feels like this right now.
Kiana: Totally. when I work with couples, particularly around libido and like where are the ‘yeses’ and where the ‘no’s’, there’s often a lot of territory to explore within ‘no’ because we kind of have this idea that like, no, I don’t want sex. And then it becomes like every kiss that feels like it’s leading towards sex becomes a trigger. And so, we avoid it and then it’s like less and less intimacy.
But really, I’m a ‘no’ to penetration with like a lot of force or a lot of like vigorous movement. But actually, I’m a total yes to a breast massage and like maybe you kissing my thighs and my vulva or us just rolling around naked and dry humping. It’s like really trying to take off the narrow way that we explore sex.
Brandi: Everything is leading to this particular penetration verses exploration.
Kiana: Yeah. Yes. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
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Feeling Connected to Intimacy
Brandi: Why is intimacy so important for parents and partners?
Kiana: Intimacy, romance, passion, chemistry, sexual aliveness is individually for ourselves, one of the ways we access our own aliveness in the deepest way. When I’m not feeling connected to that and my partner’s not feeling connected to that, and we’re not sharing that part of ourselves, that’s a core piece of marital satisfaction, relational satisfaction that I would say the majority of people want and I would go to say, they need to feel like they’re in a thriving relationship.
Beneath that, it’s such a cool way to see someone and to be seen. When you’re making love with your partner, you’re seeing a side of them nobody else sees and they’re seeing a part of you that no one else could experience.
And so to share these really like primal, expressive, deep, lust filled, you know, I mean, just, just all the like nooks and crannies of the erotic psyche. It’s so special.
Brandi: Yeah.
Kiana: And when we’re not tending to that, we kind of lose a little bit of the exciting explorative part of our relationship that that actually contributes to real long-term satisfaction down the road.
Brandi: What do you think is the most common thing that holds us back in regards to vulnerability and intimacy, especially in the bedroom?
Kiana: Well, vulnerability, because it’s terrifying to be that vulnerable. Right. So, let’s talk about even just being naked.
Brandi Oh my gosh. Yeah.
Kiana: Being naked is very exposing. And then sex, particularly if you’re receiving penetration, very vulnerable, something, someone else inside your body. And what that does like – I believe in the lineages I’ve studied, our hearts and our genitals are very connected, particularly for women, particularly for female folks.
And so, if we’re really in an experience we’re having a lot of oxytocin, a lot of bonding hormone happen, everyone’s getting a flood of dopamine and floods of these neurochemicals that are really meant to help us bond and connect. iIf you’re brought up in, you know, the United States, most of us were brought up in a culture that didn’t celebrate pleasure, didn’t celebrate sexuality any way.
Brandi: No.
Kiana: And so we were kind of thrust into it around puberty and teen years, getting no real sex education other than don’t get someone pregnant and don’t get STDs. So there’s fear in our early psyches. Probably shame around genital touching, masturbation from an early age.
And so, we come into this part of ourselves that we deeply want that makes us feel really good and we’re embedded inside of it is shame and lack of understanding of how to like, facilitate that exploration in a way that doesn’t feel embarrassing or leaving us vulnerable.
And so, we’re on this weird parallel track of like trying to get needs met without knowing how, and that just leaves us like, fumbling, fumbling adult babies to try, you know, like,
Brandi: Trying to get our needs met with no like basis or no foundation.
Kiana: Yeah. And so, you know, you slowly with your partner, you figure it out along the way. But like, unless you have, unless you invest in the exploration, you’ll likely plateau at a pretty familiar spot. And I would say this is like the third thing that I get a lot of – is like our sex is habitual. It’s the same every time. We make out. He touches my breasts a little bit, goes down on me, I go down on him, then we have sex. I come, he comes, we’re done. I mean, that’s like, good. If you’re lucky, both people are having an orgasm and it lasts longer than 10 minutes. That’s fact. That’s the fact.
Habitual Sex Solutions
Brandi: And then you throw in a baby in the mix. Let me hurry and get this done before the baby wakes up!
Kiana: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That’s why it’s hard and we can’t talk about this publicly. So this is all happening behind closed doors with, with no support. And people are supposed to figure it out. Like so unlikely.
Brandi: And people think that everyone’s having this like, amazing sex, and they’re the only ones just like struggling.
Kiana: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Yeah. I’ll tell you something fun that my partner and I have done because we have like once a week, I call it a temple night. It’s a dedicated night that is meant to explore our sexuality together.
And we, we give it an hour-long practice container. So, it’s not like, we’re going to be here doing this for five hours. There’s not like a ton of pressure. But we made a jar and the first night we did it, we have this big glass jar, I gave him like 30 little sheets of paper. I give myself 30 little sheets of paper, and we wrote down everything we could possibly think of in terms of our own desires that we would like to explore. And because of the intentional commitment we made to that time, we do it even when we’re tired. Like last week, I was like, I do not want to do this right now.
And he’s like, neither do I. I’m done. I don’t want it. And we did it. And we got a really funny one too, because I was like, sad. And I was like, not in the mood. And yeah, the whole thing was just like, moody, broody, not in there.
The one we pulled was like, it’s a classic. It’s like, watch porn together and like, you know, and f**k basically. I don’t know if I can say that, but that’s what it was. That was the vibe. I cracked up as soon as I pulled it out of the jar, I was like, of course we’re going to do this right now. And it was so it was so fun. It totally, we had the best time and it was awesome and I’m so glad we did it. And so, it’s that kind of thing. It’s like, all right, we set a container for it. We’re committed to it. We throw all our things in and like, it’s not like that all the time. Some of it is like, massage. I just want a half hour long, full body massage that ends with happy ending. Great. You know, like, Yeah,
Brandi: Yeah!
Kiana: And it’s fine because no one has to feel weird asking then for what they want in that moment because it’s in the jar. The jar is someone else’s hands now, you know, it’s like not my fault.
Brandi: Blame the jar. I can’t control what’s in the jar, you picked it out.
Kiana: Exactly.
Brandi: I love it though because what I hear is you’re creating this intentional space. Before baby we have this idea that things are going to be as they were. And they’re not. I think it’s cool that you create this space to do that. If anything, it connects us with our partner and at the same time it takes the pressure off.
Kiana: Yeah.
Rekindling Relationships Tips
Brandi: What are your top tips for new parents for improving their intimacy? Besides the jar.
Kiana: Besides the jar.
Brandi: Because the jar is pretty…and the temple time.
Kiana: That’s advanced. You know, but it’s I mean, you can make that your own pretty easily, you know, like 10 minutes of snuggling. Tips for new parents. In my experience, both as a doula and in the field of intimacy is that the person who is primarily caretaking the baby and has the baby on their body for the majority of the time, which is not always, but often is Mama – and the person who is, not always, but often has also given birth.
You’re NOT just Touched Out
That person has a really high level of outside care they’re giving all the time. And so, there’s this idea of, you’ve heard of like, I’m touched out, but I’m not just touched out. I’m actually like, psychologically, my awareness is on everybody else but me all the time right now. And to even feel like I’m able to reach my own desire, I need to be alone for at least ten, 15 minutes, half an hour minimum to feel like I’m actually inside of this skin suit that I live inside of, you know?
And so that’s actually one of my biggest tips is like facilitate times for the primary caretaker to be alone and nourished in their body, feeling in their body because if you’re not having that, you actually, you will not be able to get to a space that is regenerative sexually.
So if you’re a partner hearing this, ‘Go take a bath. I’m going to hold the baby for half an hour’ or ‘I’m going to massage you tonight just so you can, like receive no, no sex, nothing sex’, you know, like things like that that will have such a big impact on that person feeling seen and cared for.
It really is about being able to create structure and agreements that prioritize intimacy.
Kiana: So, the intimacy, the kissing that we talked about every day, hugging, I like sleeping naked because you get skin to skin all night if you’re sleeping together. Even sleeping naked alone, you’re kind of like, my skin is touching stuff. It’s a reminder I’m in a body.
Things that bring you pleasure regularly.
Must Have for Sex after Birth
Brandi: So what is a must have product that you would recommend to new parents?
Kiana: I would say like a really, really good lube to use every single time. All the time.
Brandi: Yeah.
Kiana: The vaginal mucosa changes, particularly if you’re breastfeeding. But if you’re recovering from any type of vaginal birth or any stitches or anything, if you don’t have a good lube, you are likely not producing the same amount of estrogen that you were. And you’re likely not producing the same amount of moisture and vaginal lubrication that you were. And it’s such a tender, tender time. So, like lube every time, even if you feel well lubricated. No. Put the lube on, put the lube on during, the lube on after, pour it on, put it in the lube. Yeah. It’s so, yeah, yeah.
It’s so protective and it actually it’s like increases pleasure just by using a good lube, increases sexual pleasure by like 30%. All parties involved. So, everyone benefits from using lube. And get like a get a non-toxic a really natural really good quality lube
Brandi: Any recommendations?
Kiana: Yeah. Foria. I shout out for you because…
Brandi: It’s so good.
Kiana: It’s all organic and it’s all plant based so they’re the top for me.
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Keep the conversation going. What do you like? What can you improve on? How is having baby changed what sexy time looks like. Share this video with your partner and start talking about sex and intimacy and your own relationship.
Check out the show notes for more information about Kiana and Foria Wellness, including a discount code.
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Brandi: Kiana, is there anything that keeps you up at night as a mama?
Kiana: What doesn’t keep you up at night as a mom, actually? What doesn’t? Yeah, I’m early puberty with my oldest son, and the thing that keeps me up for him, I’ll say the most is like, I want him to be excited about stuff that is meaningful and that’s going to be nourishing to his heart and his mind.
Brandi: Yeah, remind me, how old are your little ones again?
Kiana: Just about to be nine and 12 in January.
Brandi: That’s crazy. 12 is, 12 is fun.
Kiana: I’m nervous. As we approach the teenage years,
Brandi: I’ll tell you this. It’s fun. Like a rollercoaster fun. But they do come back.
Kiana: Okay. When?
Brandi: I feel like, around 14. 15 at the latest. Cause I think around 12, 13 they’re just so trying – it’ll come to a point where everything you say they’ll be contrary to it. Just for funzies. You’ll be like the sky is blue and they’re like “no it’s not, it’s red.” No, it is not. But they come back around 14, 15 he started to realize his parents aren’t all the way nuts. They know some things.
Kiana: Yeah. That’s good. I also have a pretty consistent one where I want to shout out anyone who’s a single parent or a single mom, because that has been the primary experience of my parenting life and what has kept me up in terms of like how I could both be an amazing provider and be the source of like love and comfort and ease for my kids is like one of the hardest roads I’ve ever walked in. It is a heroic feat to be doing that. And so I just want to honor those that are in that and like, I see, I see you and feel you. It’s a big deal to be taking that on.
Finding Pleasure
Brandi: You know more than likely there is a parent that’s pacing the floor, probably a little stressed. Maybe hoping they can get some alone time. Or some sexy time, whatever. What would you say to them right now, in this moment?
Kiana: I would say that in the moments we have, pleasure is always possible. It might be taking your socks off and walking barefoot on the carpet while you’re holding the baby and feeling, this rug feels soft and good. Or it might be, you know, when baby wakes up in the morning at like 6 a.m. actually going to the window where the sunrise is coming and like being in awe of that beauty.
Pleasure is such a resource for our nervous system because it actually tells us we’re safe. When we can take in something that feels good, it tells our bodies that we’re safe to receive the moment and not be in the constant to do list of our lives. And so to make very small incremental steps towards that every day, regularly orienting your perception toward what feels good will change your life, and it will change your capacity to be with challenge and difficulty that all parenting brings, you know, just feeling your baby’s breath and like the softness of their cheek.
That’s like, I mean, the deepest pleasure of your lifetime, you know? And you can really, like, savor that and take that in, it will restore you like nothing else.
Where to Start
Brandi: Thank you so much Kiana.
Kiana: It’s a delight.
Recap
I don’t know where to start because here, Kiana, she is an expert, right? She’s a sexologist. And this idea that she should be continually turned on all the time and she needs the pleasure jar. She needs a day on the calendar. It proves that she’s just like the rest of us and that perhaps we’re not alone.
Finding pleasure in the ordinary and just the every day. There are days that we don’t feel turned on. And that’s okay. Especially if you’ve just had a baby and you’re touched out. Finding that pleasure of, having our feet on the carpet and feeling the fibers beneath our feet, eating some really good food. That just hits you in a way that’s like, my gosh, I needed that. That is pleasure.
Intimacy doesn’t always have to end with penetration. Sometimes it’s just 6 minutes of kissing or just hugging. Just a hug. A hug can do a world of good, that reminds us that we’re not alone and that someone’s here with us.
After baby, you know, after you get that six weeks check off that there’s this idea that everything has to end with this in goal of penetration versus it just being connection and connection can come in a lot of different forms.
Another thing was the armory – that we sometimes have this armor for…maybe it’s from past traumas, in how we can kind of work through that and how that can affect our pleasure. One of her key ways of doing that was connecting with someone that we feel safe with.
Which then brings me to, I think, my final point, safety. That pleasure is directly connected to our sense of safety. If we don’t feel safe, our pleasure is inhibited. But if we do feel safe and that safety can be brought on with a hug, with a kiss, a tender touch, then we can connect with all those pleasurable points within our bodies.
I thought it was really, really good.
Thank you so much for listening. I’m full. I feel good. And I hope that today’s conversation, made your Life with Baby a little bit easier.
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Ergobaby is dedicated to building a global community of competent parents. The Life of Baby podcast is just one of many ways we hope to support parents through all the joys and jobs of parenting. This podcast was produced by Tiffany Toby. Edited by Angel Hunter. Shorts, edited by Hannah Hart. Written by Vittoria Allen. Sound design and theme song by John Jackson. Graphics, designed by Noah Friedenberg and our Executive Producers are Christina Soletti and Kalani Robinson. I’m your host, Brandi Sellerz-Jackson.
