Latest / The Birth Lounge Podcast / Ep. 467: Sex, Birth & Postpartum: Reclaiming Desire Through Motherhood with Ashley Mariani

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Ep. 467: Sex, Birth & Postpartum: Reclaiming Desire Through Motherhood with Ashley Mariani · The Birth Lounge Podcast

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to start off getting back into the groove, you have to be willing to be playful and vulnerable.
Mm.
And playfulness requires vulnerability, and if you're not in a state where you can be vulnerable with your partner, you're not gonna be able to be playful with your partner.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Birth Lounge Podcast Before we get started with this episode, I did wanna give you a quick content warning.
We are going to be talking about topics that are not going to be suitable for young ears.
So if you have us playing in the car or in the common areas, or we're not in ear headphones and we are within earshot of little ones, consider pausing this or maybe putting in some headphones.
I do believe that this is a very important conversation that a lot of us need to be having, and I know a lot of you are wanting to have, so we're gonna have it, but I also wanna keep our littlest ears safe All right.
It is Birth Trauma Awareness Week, and I just want to hold a little bit of space for everyone who has h- you know, experienced birth trauma, had a bad birth, had a postpartum that was really traumatic.
I, um, I see you, and I'm sending you a lot of hugs, and I'm really sorry that has been part of your experience.
I'm glad that you're here.
I'm really, really glad that you're in this community because, you know, we talk a lot about how you can birth differently and how much control we have over certain situations and of course, in certain situations, we have no control and then what do we do in those situations and this is just a wonderful, safe, and warm community where there's nothing that's off-limits, there's nothing that's too big to bring to this community and we will absolutely hold your hand and help you through that and I just, I just want to say thank you for being here truly, truly, truly.
Birth Trauma Awareness Week is always a big one, right? Um, because it is the entire reason of everything that I do and it's why I do what I do and I feel super, super blessed for the birth that I got and I want to help other women have that and I want to help you do it your way, whatever that looks like for you.
I want you to have an amazing, amazing birth, whether this is your first birth or your seventh birth or any birth, I want you to know that you can have an amazing experience and I want to show you how to do that.
So just thanks for being here, you guys.
Along the lines of birth trauma, today's guest, Ashley Mariani, is a good friend of mine and she's actually already been on the podcast once before and we talked about birth trauma and how it impacts our sex life and so if you are interested in that episode, we have it linked in the show notes for you to refer back to that and it was such a good episode and it went crazy.
Everyone loved it so, so much, so we invited her back on to the show today and today we're going to be talking about sexualization of birth versus honoring and empowering your sexuality in birth and we're going to talk about how this impacts both you and husbands and your male partners.
We're going to talk about what does it look like to actually embody sexuality both pre-baby and then throughout that pregnancy process and then throughout labor because those are all interconnected and it can get a little weird and then how do you reestablish your sex life after baby? All of this can be really, really challenging, especially if you're doing things like breastfeeding or co-sleeping, right? Things that are very normal and that a lot of women choose to do and want to do in postpartum and are biological, they're normal things, but where does your sex life fit in to that? Rather, how does that fix in, fit into your sex life? These are all complicated questions that are higher than my pay grade, so I'm so excited to have Ashley back on the show because this is such a wonderful episode and I'm stoked to share this conversation with you guys.
All right, without further ado, Ashley, welcome back to the show.
Thanks for having me back.
Oh my gosh, look, when we logged on, I, like, remembered how much I miss you.
I feel like I suppress missing people in my life, 'cause I'm like, oh, I just, like- Busy.
You're busy I d- yeah.
I mean, not only busy, but, like, I don't want to, like, be sad about missing people in my life, so I'm just like, "Oh, well, we live in two different places.
Like, I'll call and chat with them some other time."
Or, like, "Oh, I really should FaceTime that person," and then I, like, suppress it.
And then I see these people and I'm like, "Oh my God, I miss you so much."
Um, and you are- Well, I'm even more sad because you were here- I know and I didn't get to see you.
You know, that was such a that was a busy time.
Yep, that, those days were absolutely packed from sun up to sun down.
I did not have a single minute to do anything really or to breathe or think or see anybody, and we, we really got in there and it was long days, and we got out of there.
And, um, yeah.
I'll be back, though.
And you sh- you can come to the States, and, um- Yeah, I can, actually.
I just- Yeah we just updated our passports- Nice so I can come to the States.
But my friend Jess was there with you, and so I was- Yes living vicariously through Jess- Oh, ni- and with you.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
If you guys haven't gathered, Ashley is Canadian.
She's, she lives- Yes in Canada.
So when we, when we border hop, we see one another, and, uh, it's not nearly as often as, as it should be or as we would like, but our time together is always so sweet.
All right.
Ashley, I gave you a little introduction before, you know, people heard this part, but I don't feel like you need too much of an intro, because you're back as a second-time guest.
Now, your first episode, we talked about birth trauma and intimacy and how that impacts your sex life.
Super popular.
You are, you're back because it was so popular.
People, like, really want this information, and I think, obviously, sex is so taboo, nobody ever really wants to ask these question.
And I think also it can be kinda hard to know where to get this information.
And the people- Yeah that you think maybe are the right people don't always give you the support that you need.
I'm thinking particularly of stories that have been shared with me, like maybe you go to your OBGYN and say like, "This hurts," or, "This is not feeling right," and they say like, "This is just part of it.
Have some lube, have a glass of wine."
And you're like, "Okay, that's...
I think I'm looking for a little bit more."
Or, or, you know, the family that goes to their pastor and shares this, and the, the pastor doesn't have advice that necessarily feels aligned or is exactly applicable to, to that family.
So for me, one of the things that you do so beautifully is you are so neutral, but you are also so direct that you help us understand exactly what we are dealing with, exactly what our options are, and then you leave a really free and like judgment-free zone for us to just like make our choices.
And I think that is just something so many people long for when it comes to talking about intimacy and their relationships, and especially sex, because obviously, it's a tender and very sensitive subject.
A lot of people have shame and guilt and embarrassment around it.
If that's you, you should put in your earbuds because Ashley and I talk very bluntly about things.
Neither one of us have that shame aspect.
Um, you know, sex is sex, and for me as a doula, it's like I wouldn't have a job if it wasn't for sex, and also the human race wouldn't keep going if it wasn't for sex.
And I think that if we could have better sex relationships and, and ideas about sex and understandings about sex and relationships, our divorce rate would go down.
Our, our mental health would be better.
Like, I just think that it is so intimately woven into our lives and, and us as human beings that I'm sad to see it being fractured.
And so I think that's what I kinda want people to walk away with today is like you don't have to have a fractured sex life postpartum- No no matter what your choices are.
Um, and we'll dive into co-sleeping and breastfeeding and birth trauma and n- division of labor.
Like, you know, all these things change after you have a baby, and it can really impact just the way that you feel overall, and I think a lot of times those feelings impact our sex life without us realizing that.
Yes.
And hopefully, we can walk away today with some tangible steps.
So as I just kind of brain dumped- What came up for you? Like, what, what for you were you like, "Oh my gosh, yeah, we need to talk about that"? I think there is...
I really love the conversation that more people are having online, especially birth workers online, when they talk about how you have sex is how you birth.
That's a really fu- I really enjoy that.
I think that when that statement is used to open up conversation, it can be very offer a lot of curiosity, and that's really fun.
So this idea of, like, you know, we, we don't want to associate anything to do with baby and birthing and innocence with sex as a society because we've decided long ago that sex was dirty and that birthing babies is pure, even though one leads to the other, right? But even when we're talking about how we have orgasms and our uterus contracting during orgasms, and then we're talking about the orgasmic birth and what that feels like for a woman.
And some women are blessed to experience orgasm in their sex life as, like, a psychedelic experience, and they can go there with the right partner and with the right ability to surrender to that experience.
Those same terminologies are used in birth, right? Surrender.
We hear women talk about often having this s- you know, very psychedelic birth experience, um, where they have to let go in the moment, and they have to stop gripping, and their, and the muscles in their body and the muscles in their brain have to kind of just let things flow, and that's essentially what needs to happen for a really great orgasm too.
So as much as we wanna create this Madonna-whore complex dynamic, we also have to understand that we are human, and everything goes around and round and round.
And so we're gonna come back to this place where if we're having great sex, we have a opportunity to have great birth experiences, and it all has to do with our relationship with our body and how we allow another person to have relation to our body.
Okay, I'm just writing down a ton of notes, 'cause I just had, like, so many thoughts.
How did we get here? How did we go...
Like, what, what kind of things have given us this messaging that sex and birth have to be so different? Now, in our world, you and my world, they're very much the same.
But we're in a little bit of a niche world, right? We're in this world where people do talk about sexuality open, and we do recognize that you have to honor sexuality, which is different than sexualizing your baby, or sexualizing the process.
I think there is, uh, uh, we often conflate, like, sexualizing with sexuality, and those two things are different, and they operate differently, and we need them in different scenarios I think, you know, I'm gonna throw the church under the bus here, but- Mm I think it's easy to say that at some point there was conversation with, you know, X, Y, and Z religion and X, Y, and Z church that hysteria and women...
I mean, hysteria, that I think that's a great place to start is, like, women's need for orgasm was deemed as a medical issue.
And so vibrators were medical instruments that women would go to their physicians to then be relieved of their hysteria, and what actually was happening was that women were going to their physicians to be masturbated by their physicians using a tool so that they could climax and then be relieved of their hysteria.
How freakish on the doctor's part, huh? I know.
Like, you're a freak.
But pathol- essentially pathologizing a woman's, um, desire for sex, which was seen as impure- and pathological because of deeper roots in the dynamics around what is appropriate under certain religions and churches and et cetera, et cetera.
Interesting.
So it's, it's a little overlap of religion and psychology.
Yeah.
I'm c- I'm careful to, like, say particular religion because I, I'm not sitting here as, like, a, a theology expert of any- Mm-hmm capacity, and I don't wanna step on anybody's toes.
But yes, if somebody were to be interested, they could dig deeper and find out that purity piece around- Mm um, you know, we even just look at how was Jesus born? Well, there was no sex involved.
Immaculate conception.
No penis and vagina making any contact.
Interesting, huh? Okay.
All right.
This just made me think about how do you think porn culture has impacted this? Because you've got the bad effects of, of watching porn, right? You've got, like, the porn addictions.
We've got the- Sexualization totally.
The ba- well, so I'm thinking, like, the bad parts of, uh, the bad, like, side effects of, of watching porn in a relationship.
That already is kinda damaging your sex life.
And then we've got on the other s- I mean, maybe it's not even the other side, but just, like, yeah, the sexualization.
So what came to my mind was Bonnie Blue.
Have you heard about what she's doing? No.
Do you know who Bonnie Blue is? No.
She is she's a porn star of sorts.
I actually don't know.
Like, she might be an OnlyFans girl.
I'm not exactly sure.
I heard about her because she did this campaign, this event, I'm not exactly sure- Oh, is she having sex with as many people as possible? A thousand men in one day, and so that was...
I was like, what in the world is happening here? Okay, well, that was just, like, a blip on my radar.
I was like, "What's going on? This is crazy.
This is nonsense."
Like, w- okay.
Fast-forward, she's pregnant, and so now she did the same thing at her baby shower, and it was, like, supposedly this whole thing.
I know I can't watch it.
I can't even look into it.
I just keep seeing blips of it on the, on the internet, and I continue to scroll away because I'm, I'm afraid it's gonna, like, truly traumatize me.
I ju- I just can't see anything like that.
I, I want...
Like, what is that? What is the effects of the porn culture on our sex lives postpartum and maybe even, like, how it impacts pregnancy sex? You know, you always hear about men who are like, "I don't wanna have sex with my pregnant wife.
Like, I'm scared I'm gonna hit the baby," or like, "Uh, I'm scared of this," or, like, maybe you lose attraction.
There's a lot of things that can happen, right? But it's often a, a place of, like, kind of rockiness, a, a rough patch in people's...
And then on the opposite end, you got people who are like, "Um, our pregnancy sex was the best."
But I guess I'm just curious about all that.
It reminds me, and I think we kind of talked about this on one of...
I think it was on the last episode that we were on together.
This r- this pendulum swing in feminism, right? Like, at when feminism, was established, it was for a very different purpose than what we're talking about today- Mm essentially.
And I think it's that idea of- We, women of course deserve to have rights.
Women should, you know, be able to wear pants and work in the workforce, et cetera, et cetera.
Those are all very important things.
But then we've swung the pendulum so far where women have, under the guise of feminism, under the guise of, "I can do whatever I want with my body," have now begun to lose respect for their own being, for their own sacredness.
And so the concept of birth is extremely sacred, and the concept of sex and intercourse and connection that happens when men are plugged into women is also sacred.
And the energy exchange that comes with sex and intercourse is not something that we need, we should be taking for granted.
And so I think that it's a misuse of something extremely sacred, which Western culture is known for, right? We take something that's special and ceremonial and sacred, and we use it and abuse it, whether that's tobacco, whether that's cannabis, whether that's alcohol.
It doesn't matter what it is.
Food, even.
We take it and we just take it to the 11th extreme, 100th extreme, like, we just go all out with it, and then it loses its sacredness So now that we've moved to this highly medicalized dynamic of birth, and you and I were just talking that there is no...
It's not black and white, right? Like, you have to be able to use discernment and autonomy and your voice, and there's no one perfect birth outcome that is going to work for everybody.
But we can all say that birth has been overly medicalized, and that was the most sacred thing that a woman could experience.
Even something like menstruation.
Menstruation is so, sacred and, and we used to have, you know, hold red tents, and we used to create ceremony around it, and men in cultures understood it and revered it.
A- even women themselves, men revered.
Women were sacred because we were the portals of life.
We were the goddesses.
And even now, and it's this combination of both how men have seen women and sexualized women because of the use of pornography, but also how women have taken that and used it in whatever capacity that they think that they're achieving power and control in the world around.
They have disregarded their own status as being these sacred vessels of life.
Mm.
So sad.
It is sad.
It is sad.
And, like, energetically for this woman who's now pregnant and allowing not only other men's phallic energy sources into her body, but their bodily fluids, like, how is that going to have an impact on this child? Yeah.
I, uh, I, I have not been able to watch any of it.
I haven't, I don't, I haven't read any of the articles about it.
Um, like I say, when things pop up and it's, uh, you know, people talking about it, I just scroll away so fast because I'm genuinely scared about what it's gonna say, and I'm just like really kind of downright disgusted Ugh, it's disturbing to think that people can do that, you know, with a baby.
And, and I, I mean, I don't know.
I just felt, I've always treated my body very well.
I've always understood that, like, I only get one body.
I need to treat it well.
I try and make good decisions for it.
But when I was pregnant, it was like, I was like psychotic about it.
I was like, "No, I can't do that.
That's not good for me and my baby.
No, I can't do that."
Or like, "I'm absolutely doing this.
Me and my baby need this."
Um, it was like it consumed my every thought on how do I be the healthiest version of myself so that I can be the healthiest version for my baby.
And it's just, yeah, I don't know.
So does- I didn't answer your question about pornography and sex, but, um- Well, what is it? Yeah.
Yeah, go for it.
Remind me what was the question again? I don't even really remember.
I don't remember what the question was.
I guess I'm just thinking more so, like, you know, if we ha- so we have these larger studies that say that, you know, porn addiction, it runs rampant.
It is so much, uh, higher than what we think it is, right? Oh.
And we've got so many men who are just watching porn and being addicted and, and not putting that energy into the relationships that they are in with humans that know them and love them.
But instead they're putting their energy into these porn sites, right? So we've got the overall idea, bad, don't do it, blahdy blah.
It must be compounded though in postpartum, and I'm wondering how you see this show up and, you know, what do couples do about it? I mean, the obvious is, like, stop watching porn, but that's hard if it's an addiction.
And I'm sure there are layers to it where you're like, "Yeah, but my wife just had a baby and we're not having sex," and it's like...
You know, I, I interviewed Mama Shafia Monroe, who is a midwife for many years all across the country.
And, um, she talked about really educating dads on how to show up in postpartum, and one of those things is understanding the physical aspect of it.
Um, and I think there's a place to honor that piece of sexuality too, that it looks different in postpartum.
Um, and it's, it's probably not gonna be penetrative sex.
No.
And we know because there are various experts talking about it, that there's a hormonal shift that happens in a protective capacity for men in postpartum.
Mm.
Men's testosterone lowers.
And so for the men that aren't connected to their women in pregnancy, do those men have different experiences with dropping testosterone then? Is their testosterone remaining high because they're not connected to their women, so their bodies are not perceiving that dynamic of this is my baby and I need to be softer and more attentive and take on- More of these feminine characteristics.
So then by nature, their desire to be sexual and have penetrative sex and demand these primal needs be met is going to be further...
It's going to be higher, so there's gonna be a further disconnect between- Mm-hmm the woman and the man.
Yeah.
That is one theory.
We know that.
But I do think that men struggle with this idea of, "This is something I've always done," sometimes since the age of 12, 13, 14, when they are exposed to pornography "and this is how I've self-soothed.
And when I feel something that is uncomfortable in the context of a relationship," that could be the stress of birth trauma, that could be the disconnect of the relationship, it could be the lack of sex that has been happening, happening.
It could be postpartum emotions on their woman's side, and they don't know how to sit with their own emotional state.
They're going to look to self-soothe, and self-soothing is appropriate, so long as you're doing it mindfully and you know the impact, and it's intentional.
But when we use something like masturbation with pornography to self-soothe, we're gonna create this habitual need for upping the ante and more and more and more and more.
And so instead of sitting with the feeling of, "Wow, her emotional experience is a lot.
I'm not gonna internalize it.
It's not necessarily about me.
How can I show up for her differently?" It's, "I'm a bad husband.
I'm a bad dad.
I feel like shit.
I now feel shame, so I'm gonna go self-soothe."
Just furthering that divide, right? So, like, you already have this fracture, and it's just a nasty cycle of this causes this, and this causes this, and as you do that, the fracture gets more and more and more.
Mm-hmm.
And I do know that there is a lot of women who are very pro-pornography.
I was one of those women at one point during my undergrad.
I did an entire thesis on kink culture, and I interviewed people of, of the BDSM culture of our local city.
And it felt very progressive, and it felt very trendy, and, uh, I, I was really in it, and it felt appropriate to be seeing clients and recommending them using pornography to the point where I had an affiliate link to a adult film director's porn website to give to clients.
Comment "porn" below and I'll send you a link.
Yes.
Yes.
And, and I had colleagues that were like, "This is so great."
What? And so I was like, "Oh, great.
I'm on the right track."
And then I became a mom, and I was like, "Oh, I'm actually not okay with this whatsoever."
Hmm.
"And this is not okay, and it is not progressive for me to promote- porn culture, and for me to give my husband, like, the go-ahead to watch pornography whenever he needs it, like, that is not going to help our family structure.
And him and I sat down one day and I said, "Do you feel like this is something you need?" He's like, "I've never thought it was something that I needed- Mm but you are the educated person in our relationship.
You have all this academic background.
You've done the research.
You've read the literature, and so I just assumed that you knew best, and so I should be using pornography more to make you happy and to be in our relationship."
And I said, "I was wrong."
Like, I'm a 100% okay to admit that once you're in it and you're realizing it, that you can change your mind.
And I changed my mind, and I said, "I don't think that this is appropriate anymore, and I don't want it to create any more further divide.
I wanna be your source.
I want to be revered.
I want you to be able to touch my body like it's the first time you've ever touched a woman's body, and I don't want it to be so calloused because of your use of pornography that we've normalized."
Yeah, I bet that resonates with so many families out there.
I didn't realize the just, like, how vastly it was used.
I think I, I just now have kinda come into this world.
Again, the Bonnie Blue stuff really, like, opened my eyes to, like, wow, this is a whole world out there.
I mean, I obviously, like, knew about OnlyFans and I, that was kind, that's kind of it.
I just, like, knew it was a thing.
I, I see the people online who are like, "I'm making all this money on OnlyFans."
But when I started to learn about those like cultures/subcultures, it was really mind-blowing to me.
Just like really crazy to see h- how damaging it truly can be, and how almost casual its use is.
Like, I feel like it is just so casually used, and people are not realizing, like, this has a lot of detrimental effects.
You know, some people would argue, like, w- the way you use it, and some people would argue regardless.
I think either one of those answers.
Like, it has detrimental effects that a lot of people are not thinking of, and/or they're not being educated on it before saying like, "Okay, well, I am gonna use porn," you know? Um, it goes back to that eight, 10, 12-year-old who sees porn for the first time, and nobody talks to him about, like, "Here are the bad things that can happen if you watch porn at your age, or at this age, or while you're in a relationship or, you know, if you use it without intention."
And my m- I get a little bit sad when we compare the visual stimuli of pornography and these active participants where the watcher is a passive participant, right? And it's, it reminds me of, um, you know, these video games, video game culture where kids are just sitting there and they're just, like, receiving, receiving over-stimulation and dopamine, dopamine, dopamine.
And then the comparison to, like, more erotica novels.
And if, whatever you're using, if it's being used as escapism, no matter what, if it's being used to self-soothe and not address relationship dynamics, obviously no.
But there's a component in reading literature where there's entire plot lines and characters, and you have to use your imagination, and it's not being force-fed to you, right? Like, you go at your own pace.
You can put the book down.
You can reread a sentence if you need to.
It's much slower.
It's much more directed by the person reading it.
There's no visual cues or vi- visual stimuli.
So I don't put those things on the same, they're not on the same plate by any means.
So I think that if you're a family or a couple that is trying to move away from normalizing porn use because it was the only thing that kind of created that zing in your relationship, for sure titrate down to something like more of an erotic novel for sure.
Read it to each other, that kind of thing.
Hmm.
This can also be really helpful when you're pregnant and you're not feeling things, but your partner might nec- might not necessarily want to completely disconnect from you.
The disconnection too is something that I've seen...
Just totally switch- switching gears here is because I've, in my early years when I was very pro-pornography, I was very pro-sex worker as well, and I had many clients that were sex workers.
Wow.
And it got to the point where I felt like I was seeing sex workers constantly.
But in becoming a mom, again, that thi- that something in my brain just flipped a switch and I noticed that my content, the marketing that I was putting out was much different, and I wasn't looking to market to sex workers any longer.
And I did have some sex workers who came to therapy to understand how to live a normal life and exit the world of OnlyFans- Hmm and have a normal relationship with their partners who were in full support of them being sex workers through OnlyFans, and how do we now go to being normal, a normal couple with, you know, a white picket fence, normal, quote-unquote, couple with a white picket fence that have vanilla sex that is just our sex and not for the world to see so that we can start planning for a family.
Because now that content is out there, and now I wanna have children, and now my children are gonna be cursed with knowing or finding it one day.
Can you imagine? Mm-hmm.
As a mom or as a child, either one, like, just mortifying on both ends.
I feel bad for my kids that are gonna be sent these podcasts when they're, like- 14 years old, and they're gonna be like, "Your mom's sex work and sex."
And my kids are gonna be like, "Yeah, I know."
Oh, man.
Yeah.
Just, can you imagine? Gosh.
Oh, man.
It, um- It wraps us back though to what we were saying about Standing in that sacredness, right? Mm-hmm.
And I do think that there's a piece of us where that is just, like, ingrained in our DNA.
And so I would think that at some point in everyone's life, you come back to your biology.
No matter how long you've been a sex worker, no matter how long you've been watching porn, no matter how long you've had a fractured personal sex life, at some point, if given the chance and the time and the space and the support to do I would assume that all humans would come back to this idea that sex is very sacred and something to be protected and shared in an intimate setting, which is much like birth, right? I would hope so.
I mean, I think there are people wh- where hearing that statement makes them feel suffocated and creates this limitation in who they...
how many sexual partners they can then have, which is a perception.
It's not necessarily the truth.
You can definitely make having multiple sexual partners throughout your life a sacred experience- Yeah if the, if the partner themselves views the interaction as sacred.
But I don't...
I mean, it really comes down to still being very sex positive.
This is not anti-sex positive content at all.
This is saying being a sex positive person really starts with early conversations with your young children, you know, young boys, about having an erection at two years old or four years old or nine years old.
You know, watching your daughter, let's say, or your son using that hip thrusting or that, what we call humping, to self-soothe.
Like, these are very normal, age-appropriate, developmentally appropriate experiences.
And how you as the adults in those children's lives interact with that information informs how they see their body moving forward.
And so part of what we're trying to undo as sex positive parents isn't to sexualize children and talk about kink and expose them to pornography or normalizing having sex in front of them through, you know, co-sleeping or whatever.
That's not what sex positive parenting is.
Sex positive parenting looks more at having open and honest conversations rooted in physiology and biology that kids can walk away with feeling informed to make informed choices about.
Okay, you mentioned co-sleeping yes, I wanted to wrap back to that It can be something that, like, a lot of people feel like it hinders their sex life, 'cause you have this baby in your bed, right? But then, people like you and I are like, "You should definitely co-sleep.
It is the biological norm."
Co-sleep if you wanna co-sleep, you know? I'm not gonna s- I mean, it's, it's not for everybody, for sure.
As a co-sleeping family it's not for everybody.
You are definitely- Mm-hmm you're in a bed with multiple humans.
Um, a lot of babies that co-sleep nurse throughout the night.
Despite that, most co-sleeping parents say that they get better sleep, so- go figure.
You're getting more sleep and your baby is nursing throughout the night.
So, there are safe ways to do it.
I feel the need to say that as well.
You don't wanna just haul off and co-sleep without understanding how to safely do it, 'cause it can be dangerous if we're not doing it safely.
But to say that co-sleeping is dangerous is a gross misrepresentation of, um, of co-sleeping, 'cause it absolutely can be done safely.
However, breastfe- And it's not traumatizing to co-sleep and also find unique ways to have sex with your partner Okay, well, that was gonna be my question, is, like, but how do you do that? Like, if you, especially...
Okay, so something that else I have recently come about in the last couple months is there are so many people who only have sex in their bed at night I know I'm, like, freaking mind-blown by that.
Like What do you mean you've never done it on your couch? What do you mean you've never done it in a hotel bathroom? What do you mean you have only had sex at night in your bed? Like, I'm shooketh for you.
Um, so talk to us about that.
Like, when your, when your norm, when what the only thing that you know is disrupted, in a great way, in a way that you're choosing.
You're choosing to co-sleep.
You like co-sleeping.
It's not something that you want to part with or wean from, but you also are in this place where, like, you want to get your sex life back, or maybe you're thinking about second babies, or maybe, you know, you're just ready for that step, but you also have this baby in your bed.
The experts on this topic are moms with three, four, five, six kids- Mm who are the super crunchy, baby-wearing, extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping women who seem to continue to birth these babies even though they're in family beds- Mm-hmm at that point, right? Mm-hmm.
Like, these are the experts because they, and I guarantee if you interview these women, they are women who had really amazing relationships and sex lives with their partners before any baby came about, and with their bodies too, just like, you know, y- the archetype of women.
They free bleed.
They know their cycle.
They bleed with the full moon.
They use their menstrual blood for various ceremonial purposes, like totally me stereotyping.
But these are the experts.
I'm just wondering if you're describing me.
I'm like, "Oh, is she, has she been watching me in life?" Um, well, I'm glad that's you 'cause that means you're gonna have multiple babies.
Um- Let's hope.
I think those are the real experts, but at the same time, if you've fallen into the world of co-sleeping and you don't have any- matriarchal guidance or mentorship in how to do that, and you're trying to figure it out for the first time.
You don't have a older sister or an aunt or a mother or a grandmother to lead you into that, then you're really just picking up information probably on social media.
I don't know many physicians that are pro co-sleeping.
But if you are in this position, it gives you an opportunity, and, like, your partner is going to eat that shit up, where it's like, "Hey, uh, I have to lay down with the baby from this point on.
I might, you know, fall asleep.
I can't guarantee."
So instead of scheduling sex, can we be a little bit more spontaneous? Why can't we put the baby in the bouncy chair, you know, faced the opposite way in the shower while we have sex in the shower? Because the baby is young enough not to understand or know what's happening, but is still there and I can still see them if I need to so I know they're safe.
Or, you know, Grandma and Grandpa are watching baby for an hour.
You can have car sex.
You can learn to have car sex.
You can make out if you don't wanna have sex.
Like, if sex isn't, uh, within arm's reach at the moment, learn how to make out with your partner again.
The art of making out has been lost.
Yeah.
People don't know how to do it, right? Because again, it's that like, "Oh, we've hit this point.
We're like, now I'm aroused.
Now you're aroused.
What do we do about it?" Why can't we just walk away from it at that point? Why can't we just tuck that sexual tension in our back pocket and use it for when we have, have a better opportunity to use it? But building sexual tension in a relationship is an art form and a skill, and not a lot of people know how to do it because we live in this world where everything is given to us instantly.
And so that building of sexual tension takes self-discipline, and we suck as a culture for self-discipline.
So even learning how to find unique ways to build desire and to build sexual tension when you're co-sleeping takes intention.
It doesn't just fall in your lap.
Literally.
Yeah, literally.
Literally and figuratively.
Mm-hmm.
Hello.
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What about partners? So when you said the thing about, you know, set the baby in the sha- in the, in the bathroom facing away from you, I had one million and a half men pop into my head of friends and family members and client, just, like, of men where I know their personality would be like, "What? No."
And I think some women probably are like absolutely not."
So what about the people who heard you say that, and they were like, "That does not work for me"? How are these people kind of re-engaging in sex? It can be awkward after you have a baby to, like, re-engage with your partner in sex, right? So what are we doing for that to, like, get things going again? Yeah.
I mean, it's, it goes back to the building of the sexual tension, but also understanding desire.
Men might be, you know, at this place where they have th- you know, they're a little bit more connected now that their testosterone might be higher, a little bit more connected to spontaneous desire again, right? So they can get an erection pretty easy.
It doesn't take a lot.
But this is usually the chapter of life where women are begging their men to learn about their responsive desire.
Mm.
How this concept of like it's building blocks to get to the point where I wanna rip your clothes off and I actually wanna have sex with you, like very badly, feels like this hunger inside, is a multitude of different moving parts that build up to that moment.
It's not, you know, you drive over a pothole, you have an erection, and now you're ready to have sex.
So I think men learning about that first and foremost is important, while also...
And women as well, while also not making sex or any kind of sexual dynamic transactional.
Like, "Oh, I...
What do you mean? I put the laundry away for you.
You, that doesn't make you feel relaxed and you don't wanna have sex with me now?" That's a problem, right? So the byproduct of a woman who feels like she's revered, like a goddess, like she's tended to, like she's cared for, that her emotional state is held, the byproduct is really great sex.
So I would never tell a man, "Do all of these things so that you can have great sex."
I would tell a man, "Do all of these things because she needs them and she's asking for them, and as a result, I can tell you that what will bloom from that is a probab- is probably a really great sex life."
But to start off getting back into the groove, you have to be willing to be playful and vulnerable.
Mm.
And playfulness requires vulnerability, and if you're not in a state where you can be vulnerable with your partner, you're not gonna be able to be playful with your partner.
But a bum slap or you know, a ball tickle as a joke while you're walking by.
Something that's gonna make the other person laugh, something that feels safe, right? A lot of women will say, "I can't do that because the minute I do that, he's pawing at me for sex."
Okay, so you can do something cute while you're driving.
The kids are in the back.
He's not gonna pull over and be like, "Well, you started it.
Let's finish it."
Do it, do it in s- in quote, unquote's quote safe places where there's not an ability to move forward with it.
It's, it just builds that sexual tension.
There's a little bit here and there.
Um- You know, innocently ask if they could help you with a bra or, you know, stand a little bit longer naked if you feel comfortable with your naked body in front of them, or ask for support in breast massages, checking for lumps and bumps.
I think a lot of men who were recruited to help with massaging the vaginal opening pre-birth, I think that they are engaging in their woman's body in a way that's very progressive to building sexual tension Okay, that made me think about just like postpartum, right? You've got hormones going on.
There's additional mental load for everybody.
Usually if there's a maternity or paternity leave involved, now you're working with finances that are different, which in a lot of traditionally laid out homes, that's gonna fall on the shoulders of the dad, right? He feels like, "I have to work.
I can't say no to these things.
I might even have to pick up extra work, extra shifts, another job to make ends meet."
Now you've got all this mental load on both parents.
You've got postpartum hormones for mom This can lead to, like, just no one having a sex drive.
So what do you do about that, right? Are we just, like, waiting until that kind of comes back? Yeah, right.
I know.
Are we assuming that it will come back? But, but what if, what about the people who are like, "All right.
We are three years postpartum and we still haven't reestablished, really, our sex life"? Like, wouldn't you think that by that time things have, you know, kind of balanced out? Is there a time where you're like, "Okay, we've surpassed the time where we should be"...
Not that everyone should be having sex at the same time, but, like, in, in general, like, here's the average time that people kind of reengage with sex postpartum.
Should we seek therapy? Should we have conversations? Should we think about moving our co-sleeping baby out? Like, when you think about what's normal versus like, "Wow, that strikes me as probably an outlier," what comes to mind for you? Uh, I always say that two years is where the body starts to begin to replenish nutritional stores.
So you've had pregnancy, maybe you've breastfed, you've gone through that postpartum dynamic of repair, rebuilding, uh, recovering, and that two-year mark when hormones are starting to regulate themselves, maybe breastfeeding is done at that point, that's usually when we should see more desire begin to build in a woman.
If she is in a place where her mental load has been incredibly high, where she's the default parent, where she's not feeling supported by him, maybe she's lacking a village, she is going to feel like she's been parentified.
And she's not poi- And I say this on almost every podcast.
She's not going to want to have sex with her husband if she's put him in the category of child, right? So there's that layer.
If he has become an extra child, she's not gonna feel a desire towards him.
If he is passive, maybe he's a great dad, maybe he's super attentive, but he's missing that masculine, that dark masculine edge.
He's a nice guy.
Everybody thinks he's a nice guy, you know? He's on top of the baby wearing, and he would grow a lactating booby if he could.
Like, he's, like, the, you know, the h- the dad of the year.
Like, he's just on it all the time.
Women love that.
They think that's attractive.
But they're also missing that dark masculine edge, which is that piece around, you know, consensual non-consent or the dirty, rough sex or the idea of wanting to be a recipient of pleasure and orgasm without having to make decisions, right? Not having to lead it, not having to initiate it.
Like, having him come home and push her up against the wall and kiss her roughly and, you know, get a little handsy with her.
Sometimes it's hard to be able to ask for that because, again, we have that shame associated with, like, "Why do I suddenly want this? Is this wrong of me to want this?" Um, so when we surpass that two-year mark and we start to explore with this archetype of women, the women that have been doing so much and they have great things to say about their husband or maybe they're feeling like they're parentified, then we can start asking questions, and it's usually the safest to ask questions with a therapist, right? Because it feels like, "Oh, the therapist brought it up.
I didn't bring it up."
Like, "This is a great opportunity for me to be honest about what I would actually like sexually."
Got it.
Okay, and if you're with someone who's not gonna go to therapy with you, that's really hard.
Now what? 'Cause we have a culture of men, right, who've been taught that therapy is, it's weak and it is embarrassing and it means that something is wrong, when in reality, like, you've never been postpartum before.
Like, how are you suppo- it's kind of silly to know that, or to think that you would know what to do.
You've never been here before, and like, we definitely don't live in a culture that teaches this stuff, so how would you have the answers here? It, it's not a surprise that you need a teacher, and, and a teacher in this case just happens to be a therapist.
You can call them whatever you want.
You don't have to call them a therapist.
They're just teaching you what to do.
So what about the women who are out there being like, "I would love that.
Like, I would absolutely love to go to therapy.
I, I want to reestablish our sex life, but my partner just will not go.
Like, he refuses"? I run into that quite frequently actually.
Mm.
A lot of the women who book individual sessions start the session by saying, "This would've been a couples session, but my husband refuses- Ugh to come."
Yeah.
And it's not just about sex.
If your husband is refusing to come to therapy knowing that you're putting the work in to make the relationship better, there are so, so many deeper layers involved- in the relationship, right? So when we're choosing partners, we really have to think about what, what would need to happen for this person to agree to come to therapy? 'Cause I mean, therapy is a good gauge for what a man is willing or not willing to do for the exact reason that you just said.
What would need to happen for him to say okay? And maybe that's, that's a question you ask him.
Like, what are the circumstances, when you're even dating, what are the circumstances that you would say, "Yes, absolutely, I'm going to therapy"? And if a man's like, "Your unhappiness.
You're upset with me.
Your inability to tell me something that you need me to work on.
Like, you name it, I'll go to therapy with you.
Any- nothing is worth losing you.
I can, I can deal with my ego involved in having a third party."
But that's really at the end of the day what it is, is like what is the shame? What is the ego conversation, the ego part of them telling themselves? What are they telling themselves about what it means to go to therapy, that they've failed? So then what is the marker for failure? Because to me, divorce is more of a marker for failure than therapy is.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yes.
I, I'm always...
I mean, I'm a big proponent of therapy, just like in any therapy.
Um, I've been very open with you guys that I've done talk therapy.
I just got done with EMDR.
I love therapy, and I think that it is not something that you should seek out only when bad things are happening in your life or only when you need, like, help, quote-unquote help, support, education.
You know, for a lot of people it is a constant relationship that they have.
It is someone who has been with them for many years.
It is someone who can be a trusted confidant, a bouncing board, someone that they can just rely on to hear them out, to give them options, to talk about how to move through different seasons of life regardless of if those seasons are hard or challenging or you're having trouble.
Even the good seasons, sometimes you just need somebody to say like, "You're doing a great job here."
Like, "You're rocking it."
Like- Establish a baseline.
Yeah We need to know what your baseline is as therapists- Mm-hmm so that we can see what's good, what's, quote-unquote, "good", high-functioning, what's low-functioning.
Mm.
If we're only seeing you when you're low-functioning, let's say, then we don't know where your baseline is.
If you're only showing up when there's crises, we can't, we don't have a reference point.
So we love to see what your baseline is so we can celebrate the things that are worth celebrating and support you when you're overcompensating in certain ways.
Wow, literally never thought about that at all.
Yeah, that's a really, really good point.
How does the way that you were parented...
And I guess I'm, I've got two questions maybe in this one question.
So number one, the home culture of around sex in, in your childhood, like how you were taught about it the kind of conversations you had growing up about it, the overall feel about sex in your house as a child.
How does that impact your sex life as an adult? Especially, like, postpartum, right? Like, how is that showing up? And then the second question I guess is How are, if we were not parented with so much sex positive, 'cause a lot of '90s babies, this is something that we struggle with, 'cause it just wasn't part of the culture back then, right? So, like, it's not...
If you're out there listening being like, "Oh, my God, HeHe, are you spying on me?" I'm not.
It's just, I hear from so many women, like, this is a generational problem.
This is something that a lot of people our age struggle with.
And so if we weren't taught that stuff, how do we then kind of relearn that in postpartum? 'Cause that can be super hard, and it can feel very daunting like, "Oh, my God, yet another thing for me to learn."
Yeah.
The family of origin schemas or beliefs or frameworks about sexuality has complete direct impact on how you view your sexual self.
So if you have a misogynistic, womanizing father that maybe you had seen posters in their garage or shop of Playboy models hung up, which was very popular in the '90s, or an older brother who did that because they were, you know, encouraged to by their dad to gain approval from their father, um, you are going to think of men as predatorial, or you are going to see men as threats in the world who view you sexually if you possess those same body parts.
If you have breasts and a vulva and a vagina, then you are now under the same umbrella in your mind as those women on these posters or the women that you have overheard your father talk about, let's say.
If you watch your mother struggle to keep your father's attention, so your mom's maybe very careful about restrictive, with restrictive eating, you know, is very judgmental of her body, did all the Weight Watchers, did all the SlimFast stuff of the '90s you are also going to internalize that your job as a woman is to look a particular way to ensure that men stay interested.
So then your existence is really tied into how hot can you be to earn the male gaze? And when you can earn the male gaze because you're hot enough and enough men think that you're hot, you've achieved a level of status.
So there are lots of couples that come to couples therapy where either I've had to communicate to the woman at some point, um, or I've had to note it in my charts that their partner has a subconscious hatred for women, and usually that it stems from, a- and it's not often I see it the other way around.
Like, there are some women that have subconscious, subconscious hatred towards men, for sure.
I have not seen that in my practice.
The majority of the time it's the opposite, and I have to be very careful about the type of therapy I provide.
I have to be very careful that, um, I'm not giving him information, therapeutic terminology that weaponizes her in any capacity.
Um, so when I see a man who has a subconscious hatred towards women, there is pornography use.
Pornography was normalized with them growing up.
There was a narrative that women are no good for anything.
"They'll divorce you.
They'll take all your shit.
All they do is complain.
They're useless.
They spend all your money," et cetera, et cetera.
And so that might not be what they communicate directly to their wife, but in moments of having to sit with her in her pain and her emotions, they refuse to do it, and there's an entitlement around it, and there's many men like this.
And so I could never just come out and say, like, "You hate women," because they would say, "Y- you don't know how I feel about women.
Like, I'm married to a woman.
I watch pornography.
I think boobs are great.
Like, I don't hate women."
Um, but that is their job to kind of dissect that with another man.
It's a, it's another male therapist's or mentor, male mentor's job to di- dissect that with them, and my hope is that when male professionals in coaching capacities, um, you know, therapeutic capacities are with men, they are asking those questions, because those are really important.
The second half of your question was? Remind me again I don't remember, but you've got my brain going with incel culture- Mm-hmm and how that...
Okay, so that's another rabbit hole that I've just recently in the last couple months have gone down and, um, I watched that Manosphere documentary on Netflix and, uh Yeah, just, ew I can't watch that stuff.
If I watch that stuff, then I, I just can't.
I can't watch any of it.
Ugh.
I mean, I...
You know, and I'm g- I'm careful to talk about this kinda stuff online because, I mean, I love men.
You and I have talked about this before.
Mm-hmm.
I love men.
I love my husband.
I would not want to do life without my husband.
I never once ever once thought about having our baby without him right by my side.
Matter of fact, the minute I was in, like, real labor, I was like, "You, here, now.
Do not leave."
Like, "You are not to be without an arm's reach from me."
Like, "I need you here with me."
But a lot of men suck so bad, oh my God.
Like, as a whole, they suck.
And it's like, I really want, I want every man to be like my husband and your husband.
Like, I want every man to love women and be safe, like, be a safe space and, like, understand how to protect women without controlling women.
Like, that is a, that is such a skill.
In the incel culture, I didn't really pay much attention to it until I had a son, and now I am, like, hellbent on learning how to not create one of those men because it's very scary, and it, it truly does make the world for women a bit dangerous.
You know, and I thought online things can get really blown up and, and obviously hyperbole is used all the time, but when you say that there are men that hate women, literally they hate women.
Mm-hmm.
And I've never seen anything like it until I went down this rabbit hole of incel culture, and they genuinely hate women, and it's so scary.
It, we...
It's not funny, but I have a, quite a few lesbian friends, and we talked about this a few times, and they always laugh that, like, when women hate men, they just become lesbians.
Yeah.
When, when men hate women, they marry them.
Or they, like, become serial killers.
Ugh.
Like, kidnap you, toss your body on the side of a highway as they're driving an 18-wheeler.
Like, just scary stuff.
But that, that is the result of either lack of male presence in the home- Mm or extremely toxic, abusive male presence in the home.
Oh, that was the second half of your question, was, like, how do we learn to, I think- Oh, yeah about father- How do we relearn...
How do we then implement this in our life when we weren't taught it at home as children, or we didn't grow up in, like, a- sex positive home? Yes.
I mean, it is 100% po- possible, and I, and I can confidently say, like, that is the home that I grew up in.
I grew up in a home where no- nothing about sex was ever talked about, but my father was a misogynistic narcissist.
Oh.
Like, you know, horrifically sexualizing waitresses and other women right in front of his kids and his wife constantly.
So I had to re- I was a tomboy for a very long time, covering my body, wanting to look more masculine as a protective factor as soon as I hit puberty, um, because I knew that I could hear what men were thinking.
I could hear their commentary.
Like, it existed in my world.
And so going to school to learn about sexuality as my undergrad was my way of intellectualizing things, but what I missed in academia was embodying.
So it wasn't until, again, birth and being pregnant that the embodying piece happened, and moving away from everything that's happening up here and dropping into the physical experiences of just being in pleasure and being in your body and listening to your body and honoring your body, going pee when you have to go pee, using, you know, the washroom at any given point because you need to.
If you're feeling nauseous and you need to throw up, throw up because your body wants to remove something.
Your body is asking you to do it, not suppressing it, not feeling shame about it.
Like, even something simple as having gas.
Like, if you're a woman that can't fart in front of your partner, then that says a lot about how you feel about your natural bodily functions as a human being and as a woman.
Hmm.
I've never thought about that.
I mean, it makes so much sense.
Women are shamed about everything, right? And we just see that play into our sexuality and then our sexual health, which is gonna bleed into birth.
And then, you know, you've got the horrific, but also, you know, just the cases of sexual abuse that are so unfortunate and, and horrific, but so, like, scarring.
I mean, those scars will always be with you, right? And then that's an added layer of something that you have to unlearn and, and unwind in order to have a fruitful sex life and in order to- And, and you might have to re- have children re-heal from that if there's obstetric violence and obstetric rape.
And for someone who's encountered this multiple times in their life, and then they go on to experience obstetrical violence is, like, just, like, it's too much.
It's so sad.
And, and you are...
I say this all the time, but you're trusting these people to be part of a very intimate experience with you, and just like your abusers or attackers before, they take advantage of you in a place where you are super vulnerable.
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
That's heavy.
This was a heavy episode.
Yeah.
You should probably give a disclaimer.
I know.
Yeah, I will.
I'll do a content warning.
It's good conversation, though, because I think that As our generation is learning to parent, we are asking these hard questions, and a lot of times it can feel like you don't have anywhere to go.
I mean, we kinda talked about it, like a pastor and an OB is not gonna have this conversation.
It is hit or miss whether your parents are gonna have this conversation.
So many times our parents, if you are...
I'm a, I'm a '91 baby, so if you're around my age in any capacity, chances are your parents are very uncomfortable talking about this, and you probably are not gonna go to your parents and say, "Hey, I'm ready to reestablish sex after having a baby.
How did you do that? How, how, how should I do this? What would that look like? Like, don't tell me details of you and dad, but, like, what, any tips there? Like, I don't even know how to do this," right? And so it can feel like, where do I get this information? And then I always think, too, if it wasn't on the podcast, where would people get this information? Will it be, like, paying a therapist? Well, for people who don't have the means to do this, I want to connect you with someone who can show you the ropes.
I wanna connect you with a conversation that can get your wheels turning.
So yeah, I mean, there were pieces of this that were heavy but so needed, right? Like, if your partner is struggling with porn and that's preventing you from reestablishing your sex life postpartum and you desperately want more children, we're at a pretty severe crossroad here.
Like- Yeah.
Yeah those things can't coexist.
You can't not be having sex and then also be having more children.
Like, that's just not gonna work, right? You, if you have a partner and you both love each other so deeply and you desperately want it to work between you, but you are missing bids for attention, or you're ignoring bids for attention, and you're letting your egos be at play, and you just will not have vulnerable conversations, then we're at a pretty severe crossroads.
Those things can't coexist.
You can't not be communicating and not returning each other's bids for conne- connection and, and also be having sex, like, right? It's like, um, you know, it's, it's another one of those really bad cycles that we can get stuck in, and once you're stuck in those, it can sometimes feel really impossible to get out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For the people who are out there listening, and they are in one of those patterns, what do you want them to hear? It might feel overwhelming to hear that it starts with you and your relationship with yourself and your body and your self-worth, but it really does Mm Right? Like I know we had originally said we're gonna talk a lot about, you know, good girl syndrome and being just, being able to say what you need in a relationship, and utilizing something like the formula for non-violent communication.
Even if your relationship isn't violent, non-violent communication is a very helpful tool.
But that requires you to get very clear on what do you need? And if you don't know what you need, your partner's gonna be confused as to what it is you're asking for or what your request is.
But you also have to feel confident that you have a right to ask for what you need.
So you have to start with yourself, and then decide if you are begging and pleading and doing so much overcompensation and the emotional labor in the relationship, and you've asked your partner to step up and step in and participate, and he's not willing to, is that what you're willing to settle for? It's not my job ever to tell anyone to end a relationship by any means, but it is my job to hold a mirror up to say, "This is gonna be the rest of your life.
Are you okay accepting this?" Damn, that sucks.
Yeah, I thought we would end a little lighter, but it looks like we went deeper.
Okay, we could do...
I mean, like, go home and vaginal...
do some vaginal mapping.
If you don't know what vaginal mapping is, start there.
It's a great place to learn your sexuality, learn...
Not sexuality, learn your body.
Vaginal mapping requires you to get hands-on with your vulva, with your internal organs.
Learn your body, learn pressure points, learn pleasure points and erotic zones.
Sit with a mirror.
If you don't know what your labia looks like, learn what your labia looks like.
What else? I have a 3D model of a vulva that I use quite often.
Do you have one, too? Oh, yeah, with my removable clitoris.
Love it.
Clitoris twins.
Oh my gosh, that's so funny.
So you have to learn those things.
Yeah.
You know, even, even that feels like a big ask for some people, probably.
It is.
You know? Like, I just, um...
Yeah I think so many people are in so many places on their own sexual health journey.
And your story is yours, and you have to kinda figure out what works for you.
But even something that seems very simple to you and I, Ashley, about like, "Do some vaginal mapping," can feel super big for people.
You gotta start with what's comfortable for you.
But- Yes I think what I want you to hear is, like, you don't have to be stuck in this pattern.
It may look different than what you thought it was gonna look different, especially if you have a, a partner that just will not participate or just, like, will not do the introspection, will not go to therapy, will not initiate, will not have these conversations.
That's really hard.
I mean, that's so hard when things are one-sided.
Um- Well, you start with you.
You have control over you Yeah Start with yourself I was just about to say the same thing, especially when you have this deep longing of connection, but start connecting with yourself.
And I think that you know, that can be scary.
It can feel vulnerable Yeah especially if you've never done it before.
But I do think that the more you know yourself and the more that you feel comfortable with your own sexuality, the better births you are going to have.
And then it is like icing on the cake if you can have a supportive partner who's there with you and who is also very comfortable with your sexuality and their sex- sexuality and your sexuality together, and can really hold the space that the two things of sexualizing birth versus honoring sexuality in birth are two different things.
And by holding the sacredness that sexuality plays a role in birth without sexualizing the process and the experience is such a game changer.
Um- So much uh, like so much, right? It, it, it almost is a protective factor of not having birth trauma, right? Mm-hmm.
You can just, like, be free.
You can birth however you want.
You know you're not gonna be judged.
You know, nobody in the room is gonna think bad things about you, or sexual things about you, or shameful things about you.
And you just have the freedom to, like, birth your baby, and that's all that mat- Or they might, and you don't give a shit.
Well, I would argue if they do, then they don't need to be there.
Like, you- they probably just shouldn't be in the room.
And if that is the father of your baby or the parent, the other parent of your baby, then oof, that's so unfortunate.
We're out of time for all that.
I can't go into that conversation today.
But, you know, it's, it's, um, you gotta think about it.
You have to think about how you're gonna protect yourself in birth, and I think, you know, sex is part of birth.
It's how we got here.
It's how your baby gets out.
There are so many similarities.
There are so many parallels.
There are so many strings that connect those two things.
You cannot take them apart of one, from one another.
And so- But you ca- That- You can eat an elephant one bite at a time.
Yes.
Yes, your best bet is to just, like, learn how to honor your sexuality in birth without sexualizing it.
Tiny bites.
Totally.
Within yourself and your partner, right? Like- Yep start having these conversations, and if you have a resistant partner, it may look like multiple conversations.
You know, it really might.
Not everybody's gonna be like, "Yeah, I totally hear where you are and where you're going and how I can support you" But- "and, like, we're gonna get this right tomorrow."
No, and the precursor to those hard conversations is vulnerability, so start with playfulness.
Play a- Mm.
Play a board game.
That's playfulness.
Mm, mm.
Dance in the kitchen.
That's playfulness.
Then you can build on, with tiny bites, you can build on these harder conversations that require more vulnerability.
Vulnerability's so hard.
Why is that so hard as a human? But also has the best payoff.
Like, every time you're vulnerable, you're like, "Oh, I'm so glad I did that."
Like, that was good.
That, even if the interaction was not great, you usually feel very free on the other side.
Yeah, big relief of like, "All right, that needed to happen."
Oh my gosh.
All right.
Ashley, what a joy.
Like, you're such a joy.
Uh, literally, I love you so much.
I love you.
Our time together is always the best.
Um, I think you're so brilliant, and you are just eloquent in the way that you present things, and you bring up stuff that I've never thought about before, but are, like, so integral to the way that humans work and think and interact with one another.
And I think the conversations that you're having are certainly taboo, but that's why you're having them.
And, and if we didn't have those conversations, I don't think that we would be making very much progress when it comes to birth.
So thank you so much for sharing this space with me.
Thank you.
It is an honor to, oh my God, it's an honor to, like, be in this birth world with you.
I love helping people find you because I think that you're having the conversations that a lot of people need and they want, but they don't know where to get it.
So where can people get more of you? Where can they learn with you, learn from you, work with you, connect with you on Instagram, social media, all that jazz? Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So the, the most unedited version of me is @therogue.therapist
on Instagram, but my clinic is Mind Online, so mindonline.ca
on Instagram and mindonline.ca
on the interwebs.
And those are usually the best places to find me.
I'm also a reverend, and my ministry is Heart and Hearth Ministry on Instagram, too.
So see, you guys, we weren't hating on the church.
No.
We got a reverend on the show.
No.
Reverend Ashley Mariani.
Like, it, it just is true.
It's, it's that there's so many layers to this, and there are so many industries that have played a role in where we've gotten today with female health and fertility and birth and sexuality, and it's all intertwined, and, and we can't dissect those things.
They are just part of one another, yeah.
Yep.
Thanks for being here today, Ashley.
Thank you.
I appreciate you so much.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, you guys, I hope this was a fun conversation for you.
I know a lot of you probably, like, turned down the phone or, like, "Whoops, let me put my earbuds in for this one" or maybe you even paused the episode and you said, "Okay, not right now," but I bet you will circle back to it at a later time.
This is a conversation I know that so many people wanna have.
I'm happy to host it.
You guys are so good about being so vulnerable with me and sharing your stories and asking the hard questions and asking for guests and asking for topics.
Please don't ever stop.
I am so happy to host these conversations, and I love helping you get resources that will help you have a better pregnancy and birth and sexuality and, and, and just, like, just feel better in life.
So all right, you guys, I'll see you in the next episode.
Be sure to follow Ashley on social media, and you can find me at TranquilitybyHeHe and at the.birth.lounge.
Until next time, head to your app store and download the Birth Lounge app for evidence-based childbirth education and data-driven postpartum support delivered straight to your phone.
Bye.
Thank you so much for tuning in today.
I love hanging out with you, and it is an honor to be your go-to gal when it comes to preparing for your baby.
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I'm HeHe, and this is the Birth Lounge Podcast.