Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through some of the big life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode. Today is one that I
am super super excited about. Something that we don't talk about a lot on this show is sex and pleasure and I think that it is really important to discuss. So I don't know why we haven't spoken about it before, but when I heard about this company a couple of years ago, I immediately downloaded their app. It's an amazing experience and additionally, I think really aligns with a lot
of the values we promote on this show. We talk a lot about psychology, obviously, and I think, like everything in our twenties, sex in our twenties is also based in a lot of psychology. So today we are going to talk about it, and I've brought on a wonderful, fabulous guest to join us. One of the co founders of Dipsy, Gina Gutierrez.
Hi, wow, I'm so happy to be here.
Yeah, thanks for coming along. Can you kind of talk us through what we're talking about today, but also what dipsy is, because I think one of the big things about sex in our twenties is that we kind of don't really have like a guidebook. We kind of just go all in. No one's really telling us what to do, and we can feel quite disconnected. So where does kind of dipsy sit in that kind of space?
Yeah, So dipsy is an app for audio erotica and the stories are all original and we write them ourselves in studio. Their sex positive, they're feminist, they're really fun, and they show what sex could kind of be like
realistically but also really aspirationally. And it's obviously fifteen minutes of fun when you're listening to an episode, but they're also amazing to hear how sex could happen, or what you might say, or what a date could be like that you might really want to be on, or how you might enter a sex club for the first time. Right Like, they actually do teach you a little bit about how you might experience things in your own life,
and we love that. We love creating a guidebook in a world where there are not a lot of guidebooks. So Dipsy is a brainchild of kind of the combination of what sexual wellness experience could feel like and also like a really great storytelling studio could feel like. And it is both.
Yeah, and where did you get the idea from? So if you haven't kind of dipped your toes into audio erotica, I think it's amazing. Obviously, as someone who works in like the audio space, I think stories and like really provide us with an insane ability to firstly be educated, but also to connect not just with others but with ourselves. So, yeah, where did you get this idea from? Because I think it's like so smart.
Well, thank you. So my co founder and I started the company when we were twenty seven, and I'd been thinking about these ideas since I was in college, so since I was eighteen. And I remember one of my really good friends coming back to our dorm and she had just had sex the night before with this guy that she was really into. She came back and she was like, I really like him, but I just the sex isn't that good. Why wouldn't that just be automatic? If I really like him, shouldn't the sex be good?
So I started asking her questions about the experience. And when I asked her the question what are you thinking about when you're having sex? She looked at me with this blank stare and she was like, Wow, I really don't know. And something about that moment really struck me that she was so focused on her physical experience, she wasn't thinking about her mental experience at all. So I think many of us understand our brains holding us back
from good sex. It's like I'm stressed out, so that makes my sex drive lower, or I'm preoccupied by a conversation I had earlier, and so I'm kind of dissociated, or I'm overly focused on what I look like or what I'm doing, or I'm you know, struggling in all these ways. These are actually like psychological barriers, but we're really not focused on what ways our brain could really
support us and having amazing sex. And so, how do we have our own bank a fantasy that we lean on, And how do we have language that we use that we like to hear and guide someone in giving more to us, or that we like to say because we like to say it, And these are these amazing unlocks that really make sex so much better, and storytelling is
such an amazing space for that. But the reason that we started it when we were twenty seven is because common Headspace were coming up, and common Headspace we're showing that you could make an amazing audio experience that was super immersive, and that wasn't there just to teach you something like podcasts were doing at the time, but to change how you felt. And I firmly believe that storytelling
can change how you feel. And I really wanted to make stories I feel like that, and I had this hunch that audio Erotica could really be this amazing immersive experience that was imagination forward, so you could imagine kind of your own house on the blueprint that we were giving you with our stories, what characters looked and sounded like, what you looked and sounded like that in that story where you were how it all comes together is really
up to you to create. And there's something really really powerful about that that I think is really really empowering. You really are in control.
Yeah, I absolutely love that and totally fully agree. I really think it's fascinating what you said around how we recognize the intersections between our mental framework and our psychology and the sex we're having, but we don't recognize it in the moment, right. We think about it as a barrier, not as an enabler. So how can we kind of leverage that understanding of how our mind's working and how our psychology impacts our physical sensations to have good sex
in our twenties. I think that's like the golden question that I get asked so much. It's like countless episodes podcast about this, you know, articles people want to know how to have good sex in their twenties.
Yeah. Well, I think first of all, it's answering what good sex is like. What makes sex good? I think is a question we don't often ask ourselves, and I think it's a very personal question. And what I would encourage people to think about is start noticing what feels good to you across all avenues of your life. And what I mean by that is, I think we have these stories or ideas of what feels good, like binge watching my favorite show feels good, or seeing this group
of friends feels good. But then when you do binge watch that show or you do see the group of friends, you're turning off the TV, you're driving home, and you're thinking like, ooh, I'm kind of tired, or I'm kind of just like feeling a little dick, or I'm feeling a little bit out of my body. It's really interesting to notice that these things we might have stories about that make us feel good actually don't make us feel good.
On the other hand, there are many things that you might do that really surprise you with how good they feel. Maybe there's a new friend that you're spending time with and every time you leave them and you're like, wow, I feel energized, I feel excited, I feel like I laughed, I feel like I was funny, whatever, and you notice that and it feels good. And so I think it's a really good place to start with just being like, listen to the signals of your body of like, this
feels good. I would like more of this where this actually doesn't feel good, and you might be surprised by what some of those things are. I think we're very distracted. We have screens all around us, we're moving from place to place, we're busy with our jobs, and if we aren't listening to those signals, how can we listen to what those signals might be like in the bedroom. So that's like baseline where I start. Yeah, I think solo
sex is also kind of where to start. I mean, the American sex education system certainly doesn't talk about masturbation the way I think it should be talked about, where it's a really by default safe place for you to explore what kind of touch you like, what you like, to fantasize about pacing order. You know, you get to start thinking through what your ropes are. You know, your
own ropes, and I don't know. I think especially I hear this at dipsy with heterosexual women who are in partnerships with men who kind of almost assume that men come pre coded with knowledge about sex. And I can guarantee you that no one comes pre coded with that. But men often have the guidebook of porn and that comes with the whole mixed set of messages, some maybe
interesting and some really harmful. And so if he or they or she is coming with their own ideas of what sex is and what good sex is, you too need to come to the table with your ideas of what good sex is. You feel empowered in that, and you can stand firm in that, and the only way you can really do that, I think is by exploring just by yourself. And so I think like round one, like step one is what does the self touch or the solo sex experience feel.
Like, Yeah, I again, I just keep powerting it. Exactly what you're saying. I really really agree with that. It's really interesting because when I first started having sex, like in my teen years and then even in my like very early twenties, I used to just like define sex as like penetration. And I was literally talking to someone about this yesterday, where I was like I used to be like, all right, it's good sex if like it's penetrative and he comes totally and nothing else matters because
it's all about like pleasuring them. And it's so interesting because I think when I started to be like really move into this like self exploration phase, I bought a vibrator. It's the best thing I ever probably the best seventy dollars I ever spent. And then suddenly it was like not only was I having better sex, but I was
attracting better partners. And I think it also came from this like confidence thing as well, in this like sense of self of like, Wow, I am having better sex with myself than I've ever had with someone else, So I only want someone to elevate that experience.
Yeah, I think if you talk to the average I mean, maybe this is a little ageist, but I think if you talk to the average forty or fifty year old about sex being this playground to discover who you are and how confident you can be in this world and how much you love yourself, they'd be like, yeah, yah, yeah, yeah.
I think if you say that to a younger person, they're more likely to be like, yeah, totally, Like this is this underused space where if I have some more, if I pay more attention to what I can do in this space, I might like take that with me out in the world. And I think when people listen to Dipsey they sometimes say that, They'll say, like, I don't even need to listen right before I have sex. Sometimes I just walk out the street and I'm like I'm walking with like a skip in my step. I'm
feeling good. I'm like bouncing down the sidewalk, I'm smiling at strangers like that. Feeling feels like feeling alive. So I think sex is just one way to be like, how can I like really feel alive and here in this world? And that's I mean, like that's so worthwhile, you know, Like that's that's it right there in my mind.
Yeah, And I think that kind of gets to this point right where it's like you don't need to be I think you don't need to be having sex to be experiencing pleasure. I think we often put sex on this pedestal. There's this weird conondrum I've found where there's like this shame around having sex. But it used to be a lot of shame around having too much sex. And now I hear a lot of people, see a lot of people with my personal life through this podcast who come to me and are like, I'm experiencing a
lot of self shame because I'm having too little Yeah. Classic, Yeah, because I feel like everyone is selling sex to me? Is this like empowering thing? And that I need to have all of these sexual experiences in my twenties to like form the foundation of you know, having good sex in my third days or like having these stories. Where do you think that comes from? Because that's something I'm really fascinated by.
There are so many shoulds in this space. It's incredible, and I think it's really interesting to me how numbers obsessed we are about sex. We like really try and quantify it, like how many times a week is normal? What's healthy? What's good for my relationship? And what it all boils down to is all of us asking ourselves like am I normal? And it's the number one question that we get asked all the time, like an investigation
of whether normal? And the answer is that there are so many different ways to be normal, but everyone is normal in that there's just like different roots to discovering you know, what's going to work for you, and the shame around you know, having too much having too little. I see it as connected to the self care movement too, which I think net net very positive. It's wonderful that people have paid more attention to taking care of themselves
and addressing when they're overstressed or overtaxed. But when that starts to tip into are you doing all this stuff? Are you meditating every day? These are these shoulds? Actually you're putting yourself into a new should space And so I would you know, really ask someone to reframe. It's like really not about quantity at all, unless that really matters to you, decide if that really matters to you. But it's actually allowing other people to decide what matters
to you. I think what really matters is what feels good to you. And so if you're having a little high quality sex and whatever that means to you, that's amazing. Unless you feel like you want to be having more for it of it, Ask yourself that is that something that you care about, and start to like create your own ideas of what matters to you, not because anyone has, you know, other ideas that should weigh in on that. So there are going to be expectations in this space
all over the place. I think in relationships, their expectations. When you're single, their expectations, and it's hard to We are social human beings. We look to others to help us understand how we move through this world. And that's very natural. But the shame around having you know, two little sex, I think now is a little bit of like this new thing where like the former stigma was like you know, you're out there and you're what are all the old fashioned sayings like you're too loose or
too easy or whatever words were the words then? And I think now the new fear that I hear from a lot of twenty year olds, you know, eighteen to twenty four especially, is like have I had enough?
Like?
Am I experienced enough? Is it shameful and embarrassing that I'm going out in the world without enough experience? And oh my gosh, like you don't need to put that upon yourself.
I think that that is actually really getting too such a such a good point there of like the shoulds that accompany sex. And I remember talking to a friend the other day and I was like, you know, you can have a lot of sex and not much of it can be good, yeah, you know, or you can be having sex with one person right for your whole life and it's amazing. Like I think that that numbers that numbers descript on that numbers game you were talking about.
I see that everywhere in like, oh, what's your body count? As well? Totally I'm surprised by how many people ask that question.
I know, the body count thing is interesting. First of all, what a horrible phrase, so past.
I know, I'm like, oh, and the fact that I think that it's like was first used very much by man and now it's one of those phrases where we just say we don't actually think about what that actually, Yeah.
Let's talk about what it actually means just right now, because I'm thinking about it for the first time in a long time, which is like sex as bodies and that we are these transactional physical beings and we just transact with one another and we handshake or have penetrative sex in this context, and then we move on instead of having some sort of emotional, chemical, interesting interaction with someone, even if that's just purely a one on one time moment,
that doesn't mean that you're not having a human interaction with someone. Body count makes it sound so, yeah, your personhood is kind of a race from that completely.
Yeah, And I also think that when we think about body count in other aspects, maybe this is a bit of a stretch, but how it's used in like the military and to like accompany the idea of like dead bodies and like this, and when they used it in that sense, it was like, oh, what's your body count? As this like metal of honor of like how many people have you like dominated killed? It just I think is still very much this like descripture of like to
be celebrated. The high your BodyCount the better, and especially when we think about its origins in terms of a very historically excessively patriarchal, misogynistic society. This is normally what it was referring to. Anyhow, we're off track, but I do think that it's like that language around sex really needs to go.
Yeah, and we're judgmental in both directions. I think we're judgmental of single people who have quote unquote too many partners, and we're judgmental of long term monogamous people who have had only one partner. And like we're judgmental about whether that's you know better or worse, whether you learn more or less, whether you have more sexual experience or less. And I think all of it is just, you know, we're projecting our own insecurities about what's happening with everyone else.
But all experiences are normal, and all experiences are valid if they're what you want. And again, it all comes back to.
What you want.
But of course we struggle with that and sex because I don't think a lot of people are asking us to evaluate that. Very often we're not. We don't really don't really flax that.
Muscle, absolutely not. I also think it links back to very much where we learn sex from. You know, we talked about porn, but also in terms about education system, the conversations that our friends are having, movies, And I recently really was thinking about this in terms of also like your first sexual experience and how much that really determines how you see sex unless you unlearn it. And I think that that also, you know, I don't think
most people's first sex experience is particularly good. You know, it's might not be terrible, but like you're kind of
just fumbling through it. And I think that if you think if your entire perception of sex is based off of one experience or like your first experience and how that went, and you're not and that's never been challenged, particularly what I was talking about before, where it's like it's very penetration based and it's very much based on like I'm a heterosexual woman, based on what the man wants. That takes a long time to unlearn. How do you think we can kind of start to unlearn that.
Yeah, it's interesting the idea of you know, well, I had oral sex and that's not sex or these are like common things that you hear, you know, in the categorization or the quantifying of like what sex is, and it all comes down to ignoring the feelings of it, just focused on the facts of it. Your question is, how do we move away from the idea that the first experience is like this, we over index on it.
I think, just like, how do we unlearn some of some of the early things we're talked about sex, the harmful things we're taught about sex, whether that's from alpha sexual experience or from porn or from I think I think the education system is a bit different in Australia. We don't do amazing, but we I think do a little bit better.
But even then, the American system is a.
System oh wow, okay, so going against the there, but how do we unline some of those things?
Yeah, you reference really early on in the conversation that there aren't a lot of good guide books and that's something that we a dipsy are very aware of and I think it right now. It puts the burden on people to do a lot of self discovery to find out what they like, but also to do some un learning and to do some understanding of how consent can fold into their lives and kind of do the work of being a healthy sex positive sexual partner. And that's
hard because I wish it was easier for people. It shouldn't have to be so difficult to kind of self serve on the Internet to figure that out, especially because you might hit a lot of things that you don't want to see or aren't there information. The Internet is a wild West sort of resource, so I think finding sources that you trust really matters, and so like at Tipsy, we hope to be one of those sources. You know, you trust the makers. They're asking you to pay for
this content. It is ethical content by default. If you're engaging with more classic visual pornography, pay for that content. That is the best and only way that you can really guarantee that it is on the side of ethical porn versus you don't know it's genesis or how it's being made. That you are allowing yourself to expand your understanding and what those resources are. Like, maybe you're really excited about fan thick on the Internet and you're like,
this isn't teaching. This is just like the fluffy stuff about sex. It's not like you're actually doing active work and understanding what you like, what the mattics feel exciting, to you and what feels less exciting to you. And those are all resources that are available to you, and many of them are actually fun and engaging and don't feel like you're reading your eighteenth blog post about consent
and still confused. No, I want people to listen to a dipsy story and say, like, oh, like that actually wasn't so complicated, that didn't like kill the vibe. That actually made it sound even sexier. You know, there's a spectrum from like consent to dirty talk, and there's like a huge in between of like what it means to verbalize during sex. These are things that are so hard if you don't have examples of what that sounds like. So people need more resources to figure that out before
they're like out in the world. Some people are intrepid and they're like, great, I'll figure that out during sex and I'll learn as I go, amazing. And there's other people that don't feel as comfortable doing that, of course not. And so you know, our hope is that there are more resources like Dipsy around and there are, but yeah, it's okay to take either path. I think like getting out there and learning is great, and doing the work to learn was also great again and like what's your
what's your path? Everyone's gonna have a different path.
I love that you mentioned fan fic on the internet. I feel like that was such a introduction for me. Was like erotical, like erotic literature, and I remember being like, oh my god, I feel so bad. I had like this one book at college and like I actually found it the other day and like this sex and it is so mild, Like it's so very mild, and I was like wow, like, oh my gosh, like this is insane. Like I like had the page like duggy it and
like all that stuff. And I'm like, I do think that that is actually such a valid thing, Like I don't know, everyone loves a little bit of a smutty novel.
Like yeah, every It's amazing how many people now that it's getting a little bit more comfortable to talk about these things. You know, Dipsy's been around for five years, and I think five years ago people talked about this less than they do now. Even like the new up and coming interest in uh like romance media like Bridgerton wouldn't have happened five years ago, which is cool to watch.
The kind of that's happening, and I think part of it is like the pushback against misogyny happening in our culture where it's like cool, like you want to watch football, amazing, Well, I want to watch a romance vis of media and I want to watch Brigerton and that's an equally valuable way of using my time. And it's not like chick lit. It's not like worse media. It's like great media that
is fun and I love to consume. So I think a little bit of it is like a pushback on there aren't certain types of media that are like by nature worse or better. You actually just get to choose what you like, which I think is really empowering and awesome. But yeah, we all had the dog Yard Book, and we hit the dog Yard Book right, and that was in an era where you had to kind of hide it.
Exactly. It's so interesting though, because I distinctly remember my grandma having like, do you guys have Mills and Boone? What is that? Okay? So Mills and Boone is like this. Maybe it's just an Australian thing, but it's like this series of like smart books, like sexy romance books felt
like the generation of my grandma. Yeah, well maybe even my mom so like, and they all look exactly the same and on the front will be like this eighties photoshopped image and I'll be like the Cowboy, yeah exactly. It will be like the Cowboy and the Runaway like something like that. It will be like the Mistress of ohm On or like something, and it's just like and it's just smuck. And my grandma used to have them everywhere when we were kids. So it's it's interesting that
I still felt like shame around sex. I think because I was like, oh my god, Grandma, that's so embarrassing. But it was so it's so funny because I think that it's just and it I think also she did feel a bit of like shame, but then as she got older, she was like, oh, I'm I'm an. I still feel sexual urges, like I still feel pleasure. Wow, and I'm.
Really powerful to hear that from your grandmother. That's really cool.
She was, Oh, she's she's still alive. I don't know why I was like gonna say she was. She is like a very empower lady. And I think it, you know, I actually got old at that actually became more evident to me.
Well, you know, when we were first starting to think about making Dipsy not just an idea but a company, we were looking at the romance novel industry and it's amazing, Like it drives the publishing industry, Like it is the reason the publishing industry is afloat. Literally Amazon had to create a different package in order to not lose money because romance novel consumers read so many of them that
they were like literally taking Amazon out of business. The business model wasn't working, so they had to create a separate package for it. So there's like incredible, voracious demand for this content, but we weren't seeing that demand kind of trickle down to younger audiences. Why is that? Well, like is the guy with the long hair on the horse,
like really the model of what's sexy anymore? Is that it there's all sorts of kind of baggage that was associated with the category that did really well for our moms and our aunts and our grandmothers. And that's amazing, Like this is not new, This is just new ways of making this feel cool and contemporary, and like it is talking about sex the way that you might talk about it with your friends or like actually have it,
you know, out in the world. So I think it's amazing that that existed, but I also think we should be aware that that was very much like relegated as this like silly little woman's thing, which happens a lot where either sex is very very dangerous or sex is like this like silly, safe little interest, and those like those are the kind of the two places that it can be. You know, our understanding of what pleasure is is really really limited in the context of Western society.
You know, we've been taught to be good members of society, and that our value is measured by what we make or what we do, or by our success or maybe buy how esteemed we are, and so we see pleasure as like a distraction to what matters most, or worse, like a place of no return, Like if we focus on pleasure, we'll ignore all these more important parts of
our lives. And so pleasure is generally seen as the stone where it's like allowed to exist if it feels guilty, Like you can have it, but you better feel guilty
about it. That's like the regulating factor. And I think the way that we treated romance novels for many, many decades was that it's like, Okay, you can have your silly little book that's safe, but like, let's make you feel a little guilty about it to keep it in check, because pleasure is seen as selfish, and pleasure is seen as you know, you need to earn it, and the worst worst case scenario, it's seen as dangerous, where like,
once you get a taste, what will happen? And frankly, I think, in the context of our patriarchal society, as you just called it out, if a woman knows what true pleasure is, why wouldn't she just leave her husband, Why wouldn't she break the family you did? Why wouldn't she be out discovering and exploring. It was like, let's not even give her a taste, right, And those are the containers of thought that we still see when we talk to our customers. We hear that all the time.
These are the things I'm afraid of. It's like, Eh, if I'm experiencing pleasure, I'm wasting time, Or like if I'm experiencing pleasure, that means someone else experiences less of it. Or if I work hard enough and get thin enough, then I deserve something.
Like we all know that feels like that second point that you just said then was like like I've never been able to identify which one that if I feel pleasure, someone else.
Will feel less zero sum.
Oh my goodness. Ye, I'm shocked because I think that that is an attitude that I've had for a very long time. Definitely, Wow, that was like kind of my going to me. But people are probably listening to this being like, yeah, Dad, that's not true. But like, I think it was just the way that you were able
to describe that. I guess that really Also, I want to say, you're so right when you were talking about the you know, the cowboy with the long hair, and how this generation is is not particularly attracted to that depiction. And I really think you know that it comes down to people are more interested in a character psychologically nowadays.
Same way they don't want them to be. Yeah, they don't want them to be like perfect, they want them to be they want them to have some kind of nuance and some kind of discoverability and some kind of vulnerability that is interesting. It's not just about physical form. It's not about being this like archetype and depiction of attractiveness. It's it's we are like we we want to be more psychologically satisfied by our characters.
That's so well said, and you see that in fan fiction, like you see the kind of like enemy that is misunderstood and has so much more to offer, or the kind of mysterious character that hasn't been fully understood until one person can really see and understand them. And that's some of the most common tropes that you're seeing happen over and over again.
Yeah, definitely, your biggest example is Christian Gray. Yeah, that's probably fifty shades gay like this, like torture.
Do you think he's redeemable often?
I don't know.
That's questions out here.
Yeah, I actually did read that. I actually read that series of my summer break this year.
Oh really, I think I wasn't a fan.
I was, I wasn't a fan. I actually didn't love it. I didn't love it. It was just at my beach house and I had forgotten to bring a book because I was hiking beforehand, and it was the only thing that. Funnily enough, they actually had three copies, so it was like me. Yeah, So it was like me and my cousin and one of my best friends. We were all reading it fun We book clubbed it like an accident.
Of what was the debrief?
Like, I think it was like, you know, it was so funny. At one point she won't mind me saying this, but my cousin was like, got to this part that I knew was like particularly spicy, and then she's like, I'm just gonna go upstairs. Yeah, And I was like, you, I think that is so valid. I think like our consensus on it was like this is not actually that appealing because it would be like I think the one thing that I noticed about it was in all the
sex scenes, it was like she came really quickly. She came within like three minutes, and I was like, and then she'd be like, oh, wave of pleasure, and then like he just kept going and then we would die. Yeah, And I was like I do think. Yeah, anyhow, here's my book review. Guys, no one asked for it, but fifty Shades a great book group.
I mean, fifty Shades blew open the idea of what a romance novel could be, which I think many people felt was like kind of this dowdy old school thing and that's cool, Like that did amazing work, But was it the best written version of what sex at its
most aspirational and sexy could be. I think most people think, no, you know, the power dynamics at play there could have been a lot more nuanced, and the pleasure could have been a lot more mutual and like, listen to each their own, Like some people love that book absolutely awesome, power to you.
But there.
There needs to be more versions of what like a really sexy piece of media can look like. And I honestly I give credit to shows like Bridgerton that are trying to figure those things out on the big screen, which again wasn't happening five years ago. So I think, like talk about generational shifts, like what millennials were consuming is different than what gen z is consuming, Like it literally is a different world of content out there.
Obviously, we've spent a large part of this episode talking about sex, and sex is fun and sex is fascinating and interesting. People love talking about sex. But there are some other things about your life right now, your experience, that I think would be equally valuable to share with people in their twenties. The first one being that we have almost a well we have a decade between us, so you're kind of like you're kind of me in my thirties, right, like where I'm at in my twenties
in your fingxactly. And I think that there is at least around me in the people. I see this like ending doom associated with turning thirty, and it's almost like the clock ticks over. One of my friends the other day said to me, she was like, oh, what did she say? She was like, oh, thirty is when when women die, like no longer I know. I was like, I was like, I do people feel like, excuse me? I know, I know. I was like, Clare, that is not what we want to hear. But you are post thirties.
How has it been. What's what's been some of the learnings in the new outlook on life? If there has been one?
Yeah, I think you know. I'm thirty three. So the pandemic started when I was twenty nine. So like right at the tail end of my twenties, I think all of us in some ways felt like we were disrupted, like we last something, we last college years, or we lost like transition years in our twenties, or we lost you know, I lost turning thirty, like that was just lost to the wind of the pandemic. So there is
something unique and present right here and now. But you know, speaking from my experience, my twenties were interesting because ten years ago, fifteen years ago, it wasn't as common as it is today to have queer friends that were out of the closet when I was eighteen, or when I was twenty or even when I was twenty three, Like, I had plenty of friends that one of my friends affectionately calls baby queers that were figuring out what it means to feel safe out in the world as someone
who's stated as clear. And for those folks, you know, you're working through that feeling of you should be more experienced but aren't, and that can be really challenging you in your twenties. And I think there's versions of that that happened in our thirties too, Like we are all
baby clearing in some ways. Where maybe you hit thirty and I've had this for plenty of friends and you're deeper in monogamy with someone, you've been with someone for a longer time, and you're like, hey, I actually want to figure out not how to not how to have good sex, but how to have great sex. What is
that going to look like for me. So I actually see a lot of interests start to spike in maybe like the twenty eight twenty nine zone, where people are like, I want a self love journey, I want to love my body, I want to enjoy sex. I want to expand what my understanding of sex is. Maybe I want to open up my relationship. There's like more play happening with not just I want to have sex and I want to have as much of it as possible, but like, I really want to focus on quality, and I think
that that's really a big shift in the thirties. It's like, how do I really focus on what quality is like to me? Which is amazing. I think people always talk about you feel less pressure as you grow older. I mean, I don't know, you feel pressure in different ways, but I think there's a little bit less of this, like I need to be out. I don't know, tallying my body account would be the worst way to say it, but like out there and like pushing myself and I'm tired,
but I'm gonna go out on a Thursday. We feel that less, I think, generally speaking in our thirties, but we can still really attend to the moment we are in our sexual journey and it's not finished. You know, life certainly doesn't end at thirty. I love being thirty three. I love being into my thirties. I think I can definitely say that I love myself more now than I did ten years ago, and I hope that that keeps growing.
And you know, the ernie is always there and bino libido shifts right Like you might be twenty three and a really little lebido at the time because your boss is horrible and you're working super long hours, or you're having body shame images, body image issues, and there's all sorts of stuff going on, and then you might come out of that and have a renaissance at thirty three. You might have a renaissance at forty. Like the moments that we're having the best sex in our lives are
certainly not maintained or like bound by our twenties. I think actually most people that I speak to that are past their twenties say they're having better sex now than they did then. So it's ahead of you. Look forward to it. There's a lot more life to live. I think the greater interest in sexual self discovery is kind of the big one that I feel really excited by. You know, what does that look like for me? What's that going to feel? Like? How am I going to
bring that out? What class am I going to take? Am I gonna take a Shabari class? Am I gonna learn to love my body through a dance class?
Like?
I see a lot more of that. It's a little bit more like high intention, which I really respect.
What's a shabari class?
Rope tang? Like a complex kind of art but also like a form of BDSM that involves knots and ropes.
Oh my god, wow, fascinating. There we go. I'm learning. I had no idea what that was, but super super cool. It's also good to hear I think that the best is yet to come. It is such a trend like hearing that I do think that our twenty so like the quantity is yeah, we're like how many sexual experiences can I have? How much alcohol can I drink? How many countries can I visit? How many like you're mosting
really hard? How much money can I make? Like everything is like yeah, it's like I just want the maximum of everything, the maximum pleasure, And it's kind of tiring to be honest and sometimes I just want like I'm like, I'm cool with like the bare minimum.
Well, maybe that's another thing that I can speak to. That you're thirty four, I think you give yourself a lot more leeway to like feel the feeling that you're feeling, and if that feeling is t that's okay, and that's really liberating. I mean, I don't know if you're familiar with the account then ministry, but I think it's like really powerful stuff, yeah, around liberation coming from allowing yourself to feel what you feel and if that feeling is tired, to embrace it.
Yeah. I think it's also a massive shift in psychology as well. Of Previously it was around treating the negative thoughts, treating the self criticism, treating whatever's going on, and the way to like treat it was to like shame it out of ourselves or to suppress it, or to be like go for a run, like go and do this, go and distract yourself. And nowadays it's more like, actually you need to sit with them, and anything else is actually just going to exacerbate that feeling, that distress, whatever
that urge is. So you need to really like embrace the good and the bad, which I think is such a part of positive psychology and like more holistic psychology that's like really coming through in this in this like new generation of psychologists, so super fascinating. The other thing I want to talk about is your journey through entrepreneurship. I know it hasn't it has actually does have stuff to do with sex. I know this is just like
a sex episode. Obviously you started Dipsy. How has that been because I think we were talking about this before we started recording like that. Yeah, yeah, I know we should have started recording then, but it's still gonna be great. Yeah, around like your journey through entrepreneurship, I feel like everyone is fascinated by how you can start a business, what
makes a business, all of those kinds of things. Can you talk us through were you working elsewhere before, like the whole journey would be would be great to hear your path through.
Yeah, I mean this could take hour or so, I'll try and keep it brief. So before I started Dipsy, I was a brand strategist, So I was helping brands figure out how to meet people where they are with what they could authentically offer and tell stories that people liked, were interested in, and so storytelling was always part of the mix. I studied psychology and undergrad and oh I
got I didn't. And I have always been really curious about what people want, what makes them tick, and why they do different things than what they state that they want, just really you know, just fascinating stuff, just the baseline of you know, human behavior. And then I met my co founder, and it was right around the time that
I had this idea. And I think the moment that you take the idea to the reality of like, I'm quitting my job, I will not be making money, I'm going to put all of my eggs in this basket definitely helps when you have someone who is equally passionate
about that idea. So I think that we really supported each other when the other was feeling a little bit like ah, the other person was there to be you know, there's only room for one person at a time to be having a freak out, right, and so we got to balance each other in those ways and be like, no, this is really compelling the researches here and why.
While I was a.
Natural storyteller and was excited to figure out what this content was going to sound like Fay is an engineer, and Fay knows how to build a product, and so we were kind of a perfect team to make it happen. So I think finding for someone that you have good fit with but also someone who you really trust and really like matters a lot. Like you're going to be spending so much time with whoever you decide to be your business partner, should you follow that path, so that
selection matters. And I would say that mattered in the last five years even more than my romantic partner, if you can believe it, We've spent so much time together, like in many ways she is my other partner.
Really all that's actually quite beautiful to hear that. Also, that fear of like transitioning from being like I've quit my job to doing this, that is so scary.
It's so high conviction, right, like you are really saying and I really believe this, and then you are asked questions every day to push back on whether what you believe is true, and so you have many chances a day to be like, do I still believe this? Right?
And you really just have to keep believing it. And I think that if that feels excited because you feel such high conviction in something that's amazing and otherwise wait for an idea that really makes you feel that way, because that conviction will be tested on a daily basis, and there will be many people that don't believe. And that's hard. That knocks your ego. I really had to work on my self esteem through that problem, Like, what if not everyone thinks this is what I should be
spending my time doing. What if not everyone thinks this will work? What if not everyone thinks this is important. It's hard enough already just every day figuring out how to do it, but it's harder when other people don't necessarily think it's yeah. You know, does a fifty year old white man who my dad's business partner think that Dipsy's is important as a twenty five year old who
is so excited this product exists. Of course not, but there are people like that, and so finding that people that remind you of why this matters to you and reminds you of as being important along the journey is also really huge. We were talking about that earlier too. It's helpful in the world of podcasting, you're like alone a lot. It's helpful to get ot there and be like Wow, I meet you and you really like what I'm doing. That's amazing.
It's also what you were talking about, the idea that comes along. I've watched this amazing Ted talk the other day that was explaining how ancient civilizations used to think that the ideas lived in the walls and in the wind, and so like an idea would come to you in the wind and you had to like grab it, and you had like a responsibility to grab it out and hold on to it super tight because and you can
see the ideas like floating by. I think a lot of people have like million dollar ideas on a daily basis. I think everyone has had a million dollar idea, but it's like they just let it float by then grab it and it is it takes a lot of courage to do both things. I think it takes a lot of courage to be like, oh, you know, I actually have a family right now and I can't do that or I need to focus on my studies, but also a lot of courage to be like you know, I
think that was my experience. I was like the first couple of months first year, it was like I didn't get any listens I've really it was just like my family and close friends, and it just like you just got to push through and believe in what you're doing exactly.
Maybe those are my two biggest learnings.
Is that possible?
Could I boil it out to two, that'd be a miracle. But I think, you know, what you just said is so right, Like there are some people that say, like, I have the grit and I'm willing to push through it, and I'm willing to deal with a year maybe even more where I'm not getting the feedback that I want yet, but I just believe and I keep pushing. And there are other people that think like that actually sounds more terrifying than fun. And I don't know if I have
that sort of grit. And I actually feel really happy pursuing something where someone is telling me what they need and I'm doing my job really well, and that is an equally respectable path. And in many ways I envy that in my hardest days because being entrepreneurs, like, oh my god, is responsibilities on me all the time or
me my co founder all the time. So talk about the shame thing, It's like, there's no shame in finding what works for you and entrepreneurship definitely isn't for everyone, but if you really feel excited to hold tight to that idea and like you just want to prove and like great, grab it. And your twenties are a great time for that because you're full of energy and like, you know, what else are you doing? Let's just try it, and so it's an amazing time. It's an amazing time.
Also, I think if you fuck up, it's like that was my whole thing. I was like, I have nothing to lose by doing this. I have nothing to lose, like if I fuck up, Yeah, it's like I really was, like and also when when am I going to do this? Otherwise? Like, yeah, when else am I going to take this risk? You know in my you know, things could happen at any point, like yeah, you have children, you have a mortgage, like
you're getting promoted your family members. Ill, like I need to go back and do this, like do my master's. I need to. Like I think that it was just such a sometimes everything just kind of aligns, but like you will be texted. I've learned that like the universe, the universe, like some like I think that anything worth having isn't easy. Otherwise everyone would have it so wise I know that such like it. Sometimes people like yeah, sometimes people give me, like give me a little bit
of flack for that. They're like, yeah, a lot of things that are worth having it easy. But I'm like, yeah, but I think that there are some things that aren't, you know, like not everyone everyone wants a goal. Yeah I want an Olympic medal.
Right. The phrase that I like to use is like, what game do you want to be playing and what pain are you willing to tolerate? And so maybe you are the kind of person who can really deal with challenging personalities and that's just like kind of you know, water off your back.
It's it's not.
Super stressful to you, but for other people that's like intensely uncomfortable. And so maybe you know, being a nurse in a hospital isn't the job for you because that is like sort of pain that you'd be encountering on a daily basis. Okay, so maybe that's not the game that you play, but yeah, life is. I think about picking the games that you want to play and knowing that like, no path is going to be like default wonderful. There's all there's so many things about being entrepreneurs are
so wonderful. You pick who you work with, you choose the problems you want to work on, you decide how you want to spend your time, and you own them. Like, those are really amazing things. But the downside of that, if you don't like it is you feel like, oh my god, I have all this time. What am I supposed to do with it? How am I supposed to organize it? How am I supposed to use it? I have to pick people. That's so hard, Like, I don't
like hiring. I find that really stressful. Like there's all sorts of ways that you can see the same thing in two different directions, And yeah, so probably I could bring that all the way back to what feels good for you, Like if you're paying attention to what feels good for you and you're like, I end this day feeling like it was exhausting, but I'm not depleted, I'm just tired.
Cool.
Yeah, there's a difference there.
Jana, thank you so much for coming on the show. This is possibly one of my favorite episodes. I don't know why I haven't spoken about sex and pleasure before. There's so much psychology and like so many facets of it that definitely need to be explored more. I want to also say this episode was not sponsored. I just really love dipsy. It was not sponsored in any capacity. However, if you do want to download this app, experience it's
some amazing storytelling, it's some amazing audio content. It's a little bit different to mine. You can go to what's it dipsy dot com slash psych twenty.
No, you can head two dipsystories dot com slash Psych twenty. That's dip sea stories dot com slash psych twenty.
There you go and you get.
You'll get thirty days free, so you can explore literally every piece of content to your heart's desire for thirty days and decide if it's right.
Breathe, Oh my goodness, look at that. It's free. You may as well do it. You may as well just download it for thirty days and listen to some fun stories, do some exploring. Yeah, do some exploring. I think that's really really valuable.
And I would also definitely say follow us on TikTok and Instagram. We put all sorts of fun content, educational content out there that's at dipsy stories on both TikTok and Instagram. I think the stuff we put up there is amazing, and our social media manager is a wizard.
Actually, I did see something on TikTok the other day and it was like one of your stories, like your stories and like yeah, and it was like over this like tree backdrop, and I was like, wow, who.
We targeted your effect?
Oh my god to hear you're my alcohol and just like and I follow I follow you guys, but not okay, yeah, but like this one in particular was like I was like, it's spoke me out. Yeah, it was really good. I literally was like, oh, when you listen to a cute little story, Thank you so much again for coming on. I really think that what you're doing is amazing. Thank
you so much for listening to today's episode. As always, if you feel cool to do so, please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening right now. Make sure you go and check out dipsy of course, and if you have an episode suggestion. If you just want to follow along, please follow me at that Psychology podcast on Instagram and on TikTok to see what's coming out, to see what we have in the works. We would love to see you
over there and as always, have a lovely week. We will be back with another episode in a couple of days