And around me was misery. So I was always questioning those things, and I was just like, why would we be and I was raised really Christian. So why would God make everything so perfect? But somehow, I'm a default because I'm a woman, I have a menstrual cycle, and because I actually like sex. So that's where it all started. I also traveled a lot in Central And South America and India and all of these places when I was younger. It's just the the masculine project.
And what's devoid in the masculine project is women's autonomy and sovereignty and pleasure. It was to me, it was a revolution and it was the the rebellion in me. It's like, I'm gonna find out more. Half of the planet is female and we're all here because of women. We have basically 13 to 15% of testosterone levels than a man's body does. So our testosterone runs out really quickly. It's the push hormone. So men's system, they run on a twenty four hour cycle, which is the sun cycle.
Our system works on a lunar cycle. We're problematic because we have this menstrual cycle. Our cortisol levels become very, very high, which also decreases aloe verdos, so many things, but it's so, it really messes with our health and our ability to think. We need to have our dopamine rebooted, and the easiest way is through. We have a pharmaceutical world that needs to make a lot of money out of women, you know, by one movie.
You know, when we're learning to speak to a man differently and listen differently, you better be prepared. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode on The Lounge. I'm your host and board certified sexologist, doctor Diane. And I have a treat for you guys today.
We talk sometimes on this show around the importance of pleasure, which I think is such a pivotal topic because it really takes us out of the conversation around, like, pleasure just being about sex or just being about intis intimacy. It's obviously that, but I think so many times people move into this world of thinking that if it's just okay not to attend this. Right?
And and for many of us that study sex, pleasure becomes so important, and it can be as important as all of the other self care things we do. Good, you know, good food and movement and water and all of these great things. So I'm really excited to introduce you all to Melissa Louise who is a pleasure advocate. She's an erotic blueprint coach. She works around the world teaching and training and leading courses.
She really helps to help men and women just both find their attraction within, helping them to almost like be their own turn on. And there's so many more things that that Melissa is doing. So we're gonna learn all about this and more, but we're gonna focus on pleasure, your why, how to overcome this, and so much more. So welcome. Thank you for being here with me. Oh my goodness, Diana. I'm so excited for this conversation as well. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Same here. Same here.
And like I said, I think there's just so much alignment between you and I around this conversation of pleasure and how we look at it. So we're gonna talk about the importance and why. Think we should maybe start with the why it's related to physical health and emotional health and spiritual health and how it's beyond just this this intimate moment.
But I'm curious, like, for for learning a little bit about you, like, how how did you come to see pleasure as so much more than just this intimate moment? I love this question. This is and it's not a short answer, but I'll I'll try and keep it short.
You know, as a as a woman being raised in the Western world and also, you know, it really comes back to where I was raised, which is in Australia on the farm and on the land where anything to do with the feminine, anything to do with how I operated in the world was, as a woman, is completely considered defunctory. Like, you've gotta produce, you gotta do the things, and everything gives over to work. And around me was misery.
You know, the misery of the women, how also so so there's many different layers to this. So that you know, that's the beginning of the layer of, you know, just the misery in the women and also the illness that we experience, and then also the the part that, we have to be ashamed of who we are as women cycle, and this has a lot to do with pleasure. So I was always questioning those things, and I was just like, Why would we be? And I was raised really Christian.
So why would God make everything so perfect? But somehow, I'm a default because I'm a woman, I have a menstrual cycle, and because I actually like sex. So apparently that's a default even though I'm created in the eyes of perfection. So that's where it all started.
And then when I started really noticing just how closed off I was expected to be as a woman and how many people around me, like in marriages and relationships and masculine project, I was witnessing I also traveled a lot in Central And South America and India and all of these places when I was younger. It's just the the masculine project, and what's devoid in the masculine project is women's autonomy and sovereignty and pleasure.
So that I just it was to me, was a revolution and it was the rebellion in me. It's like, I'm gonna find out more. And then once I start finding out more around the health of our menstrual cycle, where we don't have a healthy menstrual cycle when we're devoid of pleasure, and relationships and the responsibility of our pleasure for ourselves. So yeah. Yeah. It's so relatable. I know it's so relatable for me. I'm sure it's so relatable for so many people around this.
Almost like this woman stigma, right, around, well, so many of us are giving our lives in a service way, whether it's on our career or as a mother or as a giver in some sort of way.
And I think there's been this, like, this stigma, right, that we can't self care, we can't self pleasure, we can't have these things because they're almost at the expense of service instead of actually really beginning to fundamentally understand, which I think so many people are starting to around, oh, this pleasure and attending to this is actually which is what allows all those other things to to work.
I mean Definitely. We So what ways, like, would you say that you see, like, pleasure really related to, like, then? Like, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, like, you know, tell me a little bit about, like, kind of your perspective on, like, how all those interplay.
So if we're looking at the the masculine project of how our world is run, it's based on a testosterone driven and, amplified existence, which is produced, work, work, work, and going you know, getting up with the sun where we're following the sun calendar. Now that works really effing well for a man's body. And yet, I don't know if you've noticed about half of the planet is female, and we're all here because of women, by the way.
Like, every single person has come from a woman's body, but we will ignore the female body. So we're just looking at testosterone levels. I mean, we have basically 13 to 15% of testosterone levels than a man's body does. So our testosterone runs out really quickly. Now testosterone is the go out and get shit done hormone. You know? It's it's the push hormone. So men's system, they run on a twenty four hour cycle, which is the sun cycle. Our system works on a lunar cycle.
So we're recording this on the new it is new year today. It wasn't January. Today is the first moon cycle of 13 moon cycles in in a whole, you know, iteration. So I love that this is when we're recording this. Yeah. So happy new year, by the way. Yeah. Funny new year. Yes. So so then if a woman is existing in the man's the man's energetic cycle, she's in constant depletion, and we see this. We've created menopause.
Menopause is not the female body is not designed to always turn in on itself and to be a fucking problem in itself, but our culture makes us believe that we are. We're problematic because we can't orgasm when the man orgasms. We're problematic because we have this menstrual cycle. We're problematic because even though the world needs human beings to be born to keep producing, to keep purchasing, we're problematic if we want time off to actually care for them.
It's all of this stuff where we're so problematic. Therefore, we are in consistent depletion. Our cortisol levels become very, very high, which also decreases our libido, so many things, but it really messes with our health and our ability to think. So we women are consistently producing in survival. We're consistently producing from this place of survival. So a woman who is following her system is like every hour and a half, every two hours, there's a need for a break and pleasure.
Now pleasure, yes, can be an orgasm, but pleasure is the way that we eat. Pleasure is is like just taking standing out in the sunshine and just taking 10 deep breaths. I mean, science is proving all of this, but women are going, yeah. This is how we need to exist. You know? Now that science is proving it, many people are getting on the bandwagon. But it actually we need to have our dopamine rebooted, and the easiest way is through pleasure. So and pleasure is our responsibility.
And I think too because much of the way of the feminine has been dismissed because it doesn't fit into the construct of of the masculine project, then just the way that women are has also been deemed as frivolous or it's it's not really it's not to be taken seriously. Yet a woman is born an orgasm. Like, we are orgasmic by nature. The way our whole system operates is an is so erotic.
The fact that, you know, the way that we fall in love, the way that we'll touch the skin of our children, the way that we're so like, you know, the silk that we wanna wear or the way that we set up our houses. Like, you know, there's people talk about how the feminine just amplifies everything. Well, that's all that is in an orgasmic manner. It's an erotic turn on manner. But because we vilified those words and we've vilified the act of pleasure, it's being removed from the human experience.
It's how we experience life. So it's so necessary for the health of relationships and family, as well as our brain and our heart health. Our our hormones need to be reset through pleasure, which is why we have so many issues around our menstruation. I mean, people we have a pharmaceutical world that needs to make a lot of money out of women, you know, by relieving clutter. Mean, follow the money and you will find the answers.
Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. One of the things I'm thinking about as you talk that I've been just speaking out about, just I feel a level of frustration around this, is when it comes to even describing female anatomy, like, lot of what I find is happening is we are oftentimes, like, looking at, like and and we're comparing, like, okay. The clitoris on a woman is like this part on a man and that type of thing.
And I I get really frustrated by it because kind of like you're saying, it's like we've gotten to this point where everything about a female is almost looked at as like like, okay. This is how to relate it to the masculine versus this is a completely different like, we are structured very, very, very different, and both, you know, man and women are, you know, amazingly perfect in their uniqueness of their structure.
But I think we really are running into these problems of not supporting the female to pleasure and orgasm by saying, like, okay. Well, this body part, it's like the female version of that. And, like, that's not really what it is at all. Yes. So you you brought up, like, pleasure being our responsibility, which I totally agree with. But I would love to, like, go deeper into that. Like, what does that mean to you, and, like, what do you have to say about that?
Because I think that's an important thing. Yeah. I mean, first of all, knowing our body and knowing how our body responds to certain touch and what we like and what our different orgasmic gateways need. The clitoris is well, clitoris is our labia is the first gateway. You know, our labia, many women don't you know, we're not even taught this, but our labia is the most exquisite first gateway. She's closed for many reasons. It's like, I'm not effing ready, and she will open when she's ready.
And how does she need to to feel safe enough to be ready and to open? That, you know, also to our our, well, the map of arousal is completely opposite to a man. So our responsibility is understanding having boundaries. It's like, no. Not yet. Or do you know what? I need this first. Or would you I wanna ask you some questions first. Or please, can you slow down? Not clear. Like, you need to slow down. Yes. You can say, please. But it's like, you need to play down.
And then if the slowing down is still not enough, being able to keep on placing in more and more boundaries. So the responsibility of understanding what our pleasure looks like, what we need, what do we need? You know? And it's like it's also taking penetration out of the scenario that that solves what we're always going for.
Like, this perception that if our body's not ready, we don't want to receive penetration, that it's not, you know, defunctory or just not fair if the man receives honoring and he gets to receive a lot of pleasure and honing honouring through different of us giving in a different way. Like, it's also changing our brain of, like, if if we've kissed a guy, if we've gone out on a date with a guy, if we've said yes to him to being in a house, that doesn't mean our body's accessible to him.
It just means the next step. So in responsibility, it's maintaining our boundaries, having our boundaries, also learning about our body and having that curiosity. We it's kind of like being given the keys to a car. I mean, I was raised driving manual cars, but I know a lot of people don't these days.
But it's like, you know, someone's not gonna give you if you've always been driving an automatic car, they're not just gonna hand you the keys to their big full drive truck and say, here, take this to the next city with all of my furniture in it. Like, you need to know how to fucking drive the manual. You need to have lessons. You need to so it's the same thing about our body. You know? Yeah. I definitely know, and I think it's so well said.
It's like, I think so many times there's almost this, like, obligatory, like, oh, I'm here. I'm naked with this person, and, you know, I'm already in it, so now I have to be in it versus, like, well, there is this, like, not only responsibility, but right, and to say, actually, this is not what I want right now, or I want it slow, or I want it this way.
Like, all I think I think we just have gotten to a point sometimes where there's this belief that men are just supposed to, like, automatically, like, know and read our minds and that sort of thing, and it just is not it doesn't work that way. What about orgasm and like Can I just add sorry, darling? I just wanna add to what you're saying about your man. It's like, you know, this thing of expecting a man to know, it's also really fucking unfair. It really is unfair.
And the way that men operate in life is they'll just keep going towards something to fix the problem. So I'm not saying that we're a problem, but if you think about that, it's like if you are silent and you're not giving him the map and you're not supporting him, well, problem to fix is making sure there's pleasure or making sure in many men's eyes, it's like there's gotta be an orgasm.
So they're gonna keep on doing a plus b equals c, but you're a y and a x and a z and then a w and then a l and give me an s, you know, and he's going, oh, we had to do it. We're not. It's not fair. It's really not fair on him. And many men will just keep on moving through the world doing what they think they know so they get the result that they think they need to operate with. And so, yeah, it's also not not fair on them that way.
Yeah. I think it's a really good point, and I think that's where the faking orgasms and all of that just comes into, like, the complication of the matter around, like, oh, if we see as the orgasm and it's a plus b equals, like, a fake orgasm, then it's, like, we're just sending that signal like you're saying, have I and really giving the information to the person that's trying to provide pleasure that it's working. So obviously, we're gonna get this whole thing because No.
We're sending the message that a plus b equals c. So it's Yeah. Do you where do you find I'm gonna come back to the orgasm thing in a minute. But where do you find from a standpoint because I know in some of your work, you talk about, like, emasculation. And I look at emasculation as, like, two different parts. Right? I look at as men emasculate themselves and females emasculate men. Right? So it can happen externally or internally. Where do you think that plays?
Like, how does that come in with, like, your work in this whole conversation of pleasure? Oh, so much. So much. You know, many men that I work with, they know that they're being emasculated by their woman, yet it's also just they kind of put up with it. So then what that does also is separates the connection so they feel they don't have a place. You know, the woman's, you know, often comes saying, he doesn't do this. He doesn't listen to me.
He's not you know, I've told him so many times, and he's like, well, what's worth it? You know, why should I do anything? It's always wrong anyway. So I love Alison Armstrong saying about women's my favorite. Yeah. Women treat men like, you know, misbehaving hairy women. Now this also comes from the space where we're very critical of ourselves, and we women walk through the world criticizing our own breath. We criticize the way that our nose sits on our face. Men don't think that way.
So we're going towards the man as if criticism's going to change their behavior, and it doesn't. All it does is, like, well, they'll leave. They'll leave the room. They'll leave for the day. They won't come home early, and that they mentally leave as well. You know, they're kind of shut down. So then also too, it's like once something's problematic, everything feels problematic.
So emasculation, when we are doing it to our men, we're actually not on we're needing and we can be criticizing and we're requiring to be really seen as a woman, but we're not seeing them as a man. And so we're wanting something from them that we're not willing to give. And it also brings us to the point where we're mothering. I mean, there's nothing fucking more unsexy than a relationship dynamic that feels like your fucking mother. Excuse my language.
And I thought it was actually you know, I went out I have a new lover in my life, and we went out we have a rule. We worked out on our very first date. Do not eat and then try to make love, so we made up a new rule.
The first F comes first and then the feeding comes second, so we're going after carcass living in a thing, and I see it all around, all of these women telling their men off for paying at the wrong place, for it was just insane, and I was just watching all of this stuff of, like, how insidious emasculation is. Like, these grown ass men that are obviously in their fifties and sixties. You know, they're on holiday. The children like, these they they have a life. You know?
They're they're they're fully fledged adults, and yet the bickering and the start and, of course, it's coming I'm not women we have our own stories of what's happening. I'm not saying he's the most amazing man and she's just annoying. Like, it's also it takes two to tango, but the first thing to to unravel from the female side is how we are masculinating our men and how we're mothering them, which there's no way they wanna come to us.
There's no way they're gonna slow their touchdown when it's just like, no. It's gonna be wrong anyway type thing. Yeah. And I think, you know, to add on to that, I think another thing that I learned and Alison is my favorite because she literally changed my entire life with how I approach masculine. And and one of the reasons I'm four years into the most successful relationship of my life is I think so rooted in how much I've studied her work.
Mhmm. Because I think it's it's this thing, like, women, we are we do wanna speak up for things that are bothering us, that are maybe creating that emotional distance. But I think we do it, I get Allison's term as a way of, like you say, like, looking at the the man as like a big hairy woman when everything is wired differently about him. So the way he approaches the world, the way he does his focus awareness, like so many things, are just not how we perceive things.
So it's not that he's necessarily doing anything wrong, in these thing in these times where we may feel hurt. Maybe he's doing something wrong, but it largely is just, hey, a different perception of the world that if we can come and come at it from this is how I perceive, this is how you perceive, we can be on the same team again without creating that emasculation. I mean, emasculation also comes from where this belief that or the misunderstanding. I mean, what is it?
The man, all he wants to do is make his woman happy. Yeah. But when we're emasculating, it was like they they just believe they can't, so they just don't do anything because they would rather not do something if they're gonna get it wrong. Whereas we as women operate very differently. You know, we'll keep fucking up. We'll keep losing. We'll keep we'll do things consistently consistently, but it's just a very different way to how men operate.
And so there is this beautiful gift that men bring to the table, which is they just and I tell you what, when a when a man knows that what he does makes his woman happy, it, like I mean, you know, I have this beautiful saying, and I've had a client experience it whereas, you know, when we're learning to speak to a man differently and listen differently, you better be prepared because you're gonna get your man in a way that you thought that you want, so
he's gonna give it to you, and you better be ready because he's gonna give you his all, And he will tell you everything. But are you ready? Yeah. I mean, it's like this approach has made me completely fall in love with the masculine, like, just as a general, you know, archetype of just everything that men are in the world, and I did not always feel that way.
So I think it's a really it's a really important thing, and and I do think that when we stop doing that and we give up our right in Allison's terms to do that and make it okay, then there is so much more of even approaching the sexual conversation with being on the same same team Yeah.
And asking for what we want and need, but doing it in a way where it's like people are empowered and they're, like, happy to show up and they're not feeling belittled and they can't get it right and all these things that you're that you're saying. So Beautiful. What about where do you do you feel like there's any link with emasculation and any ejaculatory problems? Is there have you ever seen that sort of link?
Yeah. It's definitely you know, when people say the word erectile dysfunction, I say it's fully functional. Your cock is fully functional. It is telling you something that needs addressing, whether that be physical health, spiritual health, mental health. And I see this I see this with my clients that I work, you know, when they're putting in these beautiful boundaries, like both men and women.
So if I'm working with men and where they get to, like, put in boundaries, but also where it's like, okay. Well, what's the message that she's telling you? What are the things that you haven't been doing? Well, where have you been dropping, and where can you ask better questions? I had one client who he was he spent the whole first part of our call expressing all of these things about trying to work out what to do for his beautiful wife. They've got three children, and I leaned in.
Like, I I said I asked him, and they've been married. I can't remember how long like, many of their children are seven, so they've been married for a while. And I asked him, I said, have you asked her? He said, oh, no. And I just and I just like I said, sweetheart. I said, you I can't give you the answer. I'm not her. And he goes, but and I said, just ask her. She would love it if you asked her.
Yeah. And then what came from all of that is he felt like he had more of a place and he was getting things right. He talked about that. He's like, I he goes, I'm so fucking attracted to her. It's like, win. I get it right. I he's going like, she's receiving me, like, when I put in a boundary. When I've when I've told her I've got her, I've got her. And when she softens, he goes, I just want her more. You know?
So that's also looking at where, you know, as you talk about for men emasculating themselves, where they're not asking the right questions and they're not following through or they are sort of in their little boy energy and it's like, well, know, that's, yes, she's speaking to that way because maybe you are acting, you know, their actions are coming from. She's already got children.
Especially when we're looking at relationships where there's children, it's like, sweetheart, she's already got So there's that part, you know? But then too, when I'm working with women and they change the way that they speak to their men and the way that they ask questions and the way that they listen and the way that they offer all of the information that the man might need to support them is just like how quick and also too, what I love about men, and this is the big difference Yeah.
Is that they let go of things a hell of a lot quicker than we do. Our system hangs on to things. You apologize, and I've I've raised a boy. You know, I had no idea what to do with a boy, and Alison changed my life. That is you know, when he was eight, we lived in Peru, like I talk about it all the time, changed everything. And I know when I would apologize to my kid, you because he was so intense raising as a teenager, I'm hanging on to the fight. I'm hanging on to all of these things.
I'm in grief. Once there's an apology, boom. I'm just like, are you sure? So, yeah, I'm fine, mom. I'm fine. And it took it takes a lot to go to believe him. I have to believe him. Yeah. And the reason I'm bringing up my kid is because it was constant, and it was just this constant reminder. So when when we stop emasculating and we start using different language that, you know, we receive our men the way that we want. They want us more.
They can come to us more because there's not this thing in the middle that they're sort of deflecting from or moving away from. So, yeah. Yeah. It's not making each other wrong all the time. Yeah. Right? It really changes things so much. Mhmm. So I know I think we should save orgasm for and talk about orgasm here in part two.
So I think in part two, let's talk about, you know, why orgasms are so important, but also really talking about about what's happening if, like, if especially a female is not orgasming from penetration with desire mismatch, you know, some of these kinda conversations. So Mhmm. We will do that here in part two. And everybody remember that part two, can access by joining my libido club. So you have links for that in the show notes.
And I wanna make sure we wrap up part one, though, with everybody knowing how to get ahold of you. I know you have some really exciting retreats coming up, both a, female, a feminine retreat, well as a couples retreat. So we'll put those information in the show notes. But looking at your, your pages online about them, they just look divine. So can you tell us a little bit about them? Yes. It's so exciting. So I'm going to Europe for the whole month of April and the May.
And, actually, there's even there's a few more coming on, but the major ones are in London. So I have an all women's one in London and an all women's one in Romania, and I may be having an all women's one in Spain after next week.
But these are two days these are two days workshops, and when I hold retreats here in Mexico, I take care of everything, but because I'm traveling to London, it is, you know, it's a two full days of workshops, and you will, like, need to find your own accommodation and stuff like that, but we'll be together for two full days.
And it's really around bringing safety in the feminine body to open into our own arousal and to really bring in, you know, these parts of ourselves that understand where how pleasure arises. So there's lots of somatic practices. There's a lot of beauty you know, we'll be doing rage rituals, all of these things that, you know, bring that allow our system to be free to experience pleasure. And then the couples one, I'm cocreating with an incredible, incredible colleague of mine, Alex.
We've been working together, like, through many different iterations over the last three years. So it's so exciting that we're gonna be coming together in London and really bringing this aspect of ravishing your partner. So that's gonna be really delicious and sexy.
Yes. Sounds delicious. And I I wanna just name for everybody this, you know, with the female retreat and the focus of one of the points to learn on safety that when you know, as as studying sexology continually, one of the things that I continually come back to is that I think safety is one of the key. There's several keys, not the only key, but one of the top key fundamental things that really allow the female to experience pleasure. And I think there's so many layer.
I mean, what I've discovered myself is, like, layer upon layer upon layer upon layer of of blocks that have a lot to do oftentimes with safety. And every time I get to a layer and I uncover another layer and I work through another layer subconsciously, pleasure and orgasms and everything just, like, everything just levels up.
So I think it's a really important thing, from a standpoint of pleasure, physical, emotional, spiritual, all of that health and really unlocking that which what, holds us back from experiencing that. So I just really wanted to name that because I think it's a really powerful thing about what you're offering. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. I think safety is often also sort of cornered as like, oh, I'm safe. Like, something is not gonna physically happen to me, but safety is so much deeper than that.
Am I safe that, you know, I'm not gonna be abandoned, like, after I have the orgasm? And they also talk about that where they've done studies in the brain where when they've looked at the brain when a woman's in full deep, what we call the g spot, but her sacred area orgasm and cervical orgasms, her whole brain is lit up except for two parts, and that one part is like feeling safe. Safety is like, is my heart safe? Are my emotions safe?
Am I safe to be fully me where it doesn't matter what I look like, I've got snot coming out of my nose and jacked with a piss coming out of everything, and I'm gonna be Jarvis. Yeah. So, yeah, so deeply. It's it's what we need. End of story. It really is. It really is. So everybody go check out her work. I know you have a great Instagram page as well, so we're gonna link all of that, all of your offerings here in the And then we'll see everybody.
Please join the libido club, and we'll see you all over in the club for part two. We're gonna talk about juicy, sexy, delicious orgasm, so stay tuned. Thanks, everybody. Thanks, Melissa. I'll see you guys all soon on The Loud. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Libido Lounge. Please don't keep me a secret. Please share this with your friends. You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, as well as how to work with me at mylibidodoc.com.